Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Even Doris —

  “Don’t you wish Cook was here?” Doris insisted. “Yes,” said Daphne, fiercely. “I do.”

  There was a blank silence. Then—”You’re not cross, Daffy, are you?”

  “No,” said Daphne, still fiercely.

  “You sound as if you was — cross like aunts,” said Doris.

  There was another silence.

  “Sure?” said the child, catching its breath.

  The girl turned quickly from the window and held out her arms.

  “Yes, I was,” she said, “very cross — not with you, my Dormouse dear. Only I’m tired and my head aches and — don’t choke me, beloved.”

  The little soft arms were close and very comforting.

  “Don’t be tired,” said the little soft voice, “don’t be headacherish. Own Dormouse loves it!” The voice was the voice with which Daphne had so often soothed the child’s own troubles — soft little kisses were falling, light as butterflies, on cheeks, ears, neck.

  “I’m better now,” said Daphne, and it seemed to Doris that she was laughing. “Silly Daphne.”

  The arms tightened for a last hug. “I kissed you better, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “Sure you’re all right?” The lank, dark hair was rubbed against the sister’s face.

  “Yes, darling.”

  The child leaned its weight back, and hung by its stretched arms to the neck of the kneeling Daphne.

  “Dear Daphne,” she said, “what can we do? I do wish Cook was here!”

  It was a knock on the trap door that interrupted the third quite successful fairy story. Every knock on the door brought Daphne’s heart into her mouth. It always might herald a discovering relative. So far it had only announced the charwoman who “did for Mr. Claud on the next floor, and please miss he thought you might be wanting someone to do for you”; or the man who came to connect the gas, and to ask whether the lady didn’t want a gas stove; or the vividly dressed young woman who had come to the wrong house, and was really, as she explained, sitting to Mr. Somebody-or-other next door—”and all these stairs, too,” she added over a puce plush shoulder. But each time it seemed that it might be one of the visitors whom Daphne least desired. And if it never was, then it was more likely that next time it would be. So now she said: “Come in,” not very cordially. The trap door opened, some one said, “It’s me,” and Doris bounded to its edge.

  Winston’s head and shoulders, appearing in the black square where the trap door had been, reminded Daphne of the Flemish picture of the Resurrection that hung in the school chapel. The tilted trap-door, at the very angle of the gravestone of the principal figure.

  “It’s the fairy prince,” cried Doris. “Have you come to ask me to tea, like you said you would?”

  “That,” said the fairy prince—”may I come up, Miss Carmichael — how do you do? — is exactly what I have come for.” It was half of what he had come for. The other half he went without, because he saw Daphne’s face.

  “May I nave her?” he asked; “you’re awfully tired, and I’ll take all sorts of care of her.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Doris, “do let me, Daffy.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” said Daphne—”a little washing first, perhaps. London does come off on you so. I’ll send her down in a minute.”

  “Only paws, Daffy,” he heard the stipulation as he got his length down through the trap door, “not faces. Faces isn’t fair more than three times in one day.” The face, however, was pink and fresh as the hands when Doris presented herself at his door with a tap and “Daffy said to knock — but it couldn’t not be me when it’s me that’s having tea with you — your room isn’t so big as ours — and who is it washes your hands, because I think it’s high time—”

  “It’s charcoal — what I draw with, you know. I’ll wash it off now, this minute.”

  “Some one ought to wash you when you get as black as that. You have to have a master-mind — Daffy says so — when it’s really black. I’ll call Daffy — she’ll show you what a real good washing is.”

  “No, no” — he caught her pinky hand.

  “You’ll come off on me,” she urged, reproachfully. “You wash me,” he suggested.

  “You’re very large — it’ll take a long time soaping you thoroughly,” she mused, as he took off his coat and turned up his shirt sleeves. “More water because of your being so very. Oh, you’ve got a real washstand. We haven’t yet. We have to go down on our hands and knees like forest beasts drinking at pools. I tried pretending it was a bath this morning, but when I went to walk in it, it went sideways over and everything got wet except me. It was fun. It went all under the chest of drawers and the bed and the hearthrug, and the hearthrug came off on the floor — it’s like a pattern, red and blue and splotchy. I do wish you’d keep still, and can’t you make your hand go any smaller?”

  Daphne, left alone, had put the new kettle on the new spirit-lamp. One may as well have tea, even if one’s little sister does want the cook. Then she sat down to face the first situation that had ever baffled her. It seemed to her that Doris would always want the cook. And — would that charwoman be a sufficient substitute? And who was Daphne Carmichael that she should have taken into her hands the sole care of a little child who wanted cooks, and who would want other things, many other things — fresh air, exercise, space to play in, other children, education, training?

  Doris’s laugh rang out up the uncarpeted stairs, through the still open trap.

  “She’s happy now, anyhow,” said Daphne, and suddenly found that there was no reason why she should not cry. There was no one to see her or to ask what was the matter — that was one comfort. It was such a comfort that at its instance she cried more than ever. Then she shook herself. “You’re a nice person to conquer the world, aren’t you?” she presently asked a swollen-faced lady who looked out at her from, a shilling mirror over the chest of drawers, “and why should he have asked you to tea, anyhow?”

  ‘Your kettle’s boiling over — I can hear it,” said a voice below the trap-door. “I’ve brought you some tea.”

  Daphne put herself between the trap-door and window so that the light should not be on her face.

  “I meant to ask you to come down with Doris,” said Claud, putting the tea on the table without looking at her. “It isn’t breaking our compact; I’ve waited two days. But I saw you were tired. You have a good rest — I’ll look after Doris. What a dear she is! I’m sorry I haven’t got a proper tea-tray.”

  And he was gone. The “tea-tray” was a worn paper-portfolio. The tea was perfect, and there was case. The evening light was hanging the bare walls with cloth of splendour. The shadows of the ash-tree made Japanesy patterns on floor and whitewash. Suddenly the loneliness was only solitude — the space not desolate but restful. She got out her blotting book — the one with her name embroidered on it in rosy silks by Madeleine, and began a letter to Columbine.

  “13 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, London.

  “DEAR ANGEL:

  “I have got a house of my own, at least Doris and I have. Will you come to tea with us? We have shaken off the aunts — forever, I trust, and here we are on our wild lone. We are frightfully happy. It is splendid to think that Doris is now dependent on me for everything. I shall simply live for her. We have a beautiful bigattic, and we do our own housework. I shall give Doris lessons, of course. I intend to earn my own living, but I don’t know what at, yet. There is an artist, a sort of cousin of mine, who lives in this house. Perhaps I shall try to be an artist. And I sometimes think I shall become an author. Doris is having tea with the cousin, and I am alone in the big room. There is a tall ash-tree outside the window that bows and waves wanly in the breeze. The solitude and space are beautiful. Life will probably be very difficult for a while, but you know I am not afraid of life. I mean to conquer the world. I know now why people always look back to their school days as the happiest time. All the dear garden, and all o
f you, are surrounded by the halos of memory. It is a sad-sweet feeling. I feel that I am developing very rapidly. One does, through suffering, and I have suffered.”

  Here she came to the end of the sheet — read it — re-read it — frowned and moved as to tear it; then she took another sheet, and went on.

  “The above is rot, but I shan’t write it again. Take it cum ever so many grano salises. But we really have fled the auntal roof, and we really do wish you could drop in to tea. And there really is a thing that calls itself a cousin. And I didn’t make up the ash-tree either. Give my love to Madame and everyone. And write to me. And tell me everything. Have you seen anybody — anybody new? You can write just what you like now, because there’s no one here who’d open my letters. I know they used to try and read through your envelopes at Laburnum Lodge. I shall send this through Maria Spenlove, so that Madame won’t see it. And now I’ve thought of something else — only don’t tell anyone. Is it very awful to talk to people you’re not introduced to? Because I seem to be always doing it. Y. Ms. I mean. Of course with a lady it wouldn’t matter. Doris and the cousin seem to be playing wild-beasts. You hear everything very plainly because there are no carpets, and the cousin’s boots. As I am sending this through Maria I may as well say that the cousin is not really one, but a Y. M. and a perfect stranger. He is the second unintroduced person I was telling you about. Is it very awful of me? It’s not anything of that sort, and could not be, ever, because he is in love with another girl. So there can’t be any harm in it, can there? I should not like anyone to love me unless I cared for them. It must be awful to be the cause of misery and despair to others, I think a flirt is a very despicable character, don’t you? Good night. I wish you could see this room. It’s just the place for something very romantic. One might see a pale thoughtful face at a window, and then afterward he might come across the roofs after a cat that he had lost, or something, and you’d find he was your soul’s affinity. But that would be three unintroduced persons, and one too many. Write soon to your devoted

  “DAPHNE.

  “P. S. Don’t forget to write fully — especially about any new person you’ve met. — D. C.

  “P. P. S. The cousin seems to be doing the wild beasts in different voices. It is deafening and worse than the menagerie we went to that Whit Monday.

  “P. P. P. S. I shan’t say anything about that darling diamond heart at present. You wait till I get you home — that’s all!”

  It was nearly dark when Doris arrived on the back of the tall fairy prince who was, she affirmed, her little pet elephant. “And there’s a bear down there, and a gazelle and a beautiful giraffe-lady and I did Cook for them, and all the aunts and Madame and the girls, and they did laugh.”

  “When she’s asleep,” said the little pet elephant diffidently, as he got down into the Flemish grave again, “won’t you come down and have supper with us? They’re all art students — and all jolly, You will you, won’t you?”

  Daphne would, and gladly.

  “Don’t go to sleep till I get you into bed, or I can’t undo you. Yes — and you must say your prayers. Very well, you may say them in bed. Now — you’re nearly asleep. Now, ‘Please God —

  “Please God — sake, Amen,” said Doris, and was asleep.

  It seemed worth while to put on another dress — a white one — and to do one’s hair. A bear, a gazelle, and a beautiful giraffe-lady, to say nothing of the elephant-host. If the one man in the world is far away and will not take any notice of one, that is not a reason for looking a frump.

  As she bent over the curled up Dormouse for one last look she wondered how she could ever have felt impatient.

  It is not easy to do one’s hair by the help of two flickering candles and a shilling mirror, but Daphne’s hair almost did itself, as Columbine had often remarked. Its pure red was a halo round her shell-tinted face. She looked extremely pretty, and knew it. The white woollen dress, plain as a nun’s habit, had been meant for a dressing-gown, but by sheer merit it had won its way to a higher station. As Daphne meant to do. Softly falling lace and an embroidery of gold had lent their aid to the making of a gown which no parlour in Laburnum Lodge had ever seen. She put it on now; it seemed the most “arty” dress she had — and was she not going among art students?

  Her silk petticoat swished on the stairs. Doris was left alone save for one burning candle — the door open. From below came a confused murmur of laughing voices.

  “It s no use beginning till the fire gets clear,” she heard.

  “Clear your mind of cant,” said some one else, as though it were something funny. More laughter.

  She hesitated a moment with her hand on the door. Then entered. Sparse furniture — candle-light — young men and girls — introductions — greetings. Then she was in an armchair and looking about her with eyes almost for the first time shy. Here were young people, half a dozen of them, all new, all separated from her by the gulf of mere acquaintanceship. People whom she could not influence, people who would not try to influence her. Strangers, to whom she was a stranger. Daphne felt the world widen. A graceful girl with untidy dark hair and a long neck was leaning forward supported by a stiff arm on the divan and saying:

  “What a darling your little sister is,” in a tone which convinced Daphne that, to the speaker, Doris’s sister, at least, was no darling.

  “She is rather nice,” Daphne admitted, and wondered whether this was the giraffe or the gazelle. She knew when the girl on the hearth-rug shook back her long-short hair from eyes large, brown, and liquid as the eyes of a toy terrier and said, “Do you like scrambled eggs? I think it’s going to be that because I meant it to be an omelette?”

  “Very much,” said Daphne, politely.

  Then a stout young man with fair hair asked whether he had not met her in Paris — at Julien’s.

  “No,” said Daphne, definitely. “I’ve never been in Paris except for three days once, and then we only did museums and picture galleries.”

  There was a pause. They were all trying to be nice to her, and she, for the first time in her life, distrusted her own power of being nice to anyone.

  A tall, dark man leaning back in a chair apart was watching her with half-closed eyes.

  “Miss Carmichael is undecided whether to study art, music, or medicine,” said Claud. He meant to be amusing, but no one saw this, and the silence thickened.

  The fat art student suddenly said, “Indeed,” but that hardly broke the silence at all. Daphne felt an intruder, an interloper. It was she — she, once the life and soul of all school parties, who had cast this blight. They had all been laughing before she came in. The girl on the hearth-rug smoothed a paint-stained pinafore, and moved the eggs on the hearthrug as though she were going to do conjuring tricks with them. A long-nosed young man, leaning against the wall, patiently sought to conceal the fact that his hands had not been washed for a long time. The man in the chair still looked at her. And the look was not friendly. She wished he wouldn’t.

  “You’ll have some cocoa?” said Claud, with the effect of an ultimatum.

  “Thank you,” said Daphne, in what sounded like tones of contempt.

  “Oh, why did I come?” she was saying to herself. “They were so jolly without me. They hate my being here. Shall I have a headache and go?”

  Conversation had resumed itself. The others were talking to each other, about things and people that she did not know. But there was none of the gay laughter that had hurried her hands at their hairdressing that she might the sooner be one of that merry party.

  “I am a blight,” Daphne told herself. “A blight —— me!”

  They had tried to talk to her — to be civil. She had not known how to reply. She sat in silence listening, watching. Her eyes went from one shabby figure to another and fell on her own white lap. What a dress to have put on to come to a students’ tea-party! No wonder they felt her a blight. Such a fool would be. Why hadn’t she come as she was? Or put on the old green dress? No doubt t
hey thought she was superior and stuck-up — and she had no way of showing them that she wasn’t. That Winston boy might have told them she wasn’t a blight. Or shown them. But the situation was evidently beyond him. He still babbled fitfully of cocoa. She looked round her, in something like despair, and all her longing was to “get out of it.” Then her blue eyes met the beautiful eyes of the giraffe-lady, looked long, drew from their green depths a desperate courage. She leaned forward.

  ‘I am most awfully frightened of you all,” she said to the green eyes. “I never met anyone really interesting before. Anyone who did things, I mean.”

  “We don’t do much,” said Green Eyes doubtfully. “We’re only art students.”

  “I’m a schoolgirl,” said Daphne; “at least I was till the other day. And now” — the proper method of making cocoa was being hotly debated and under cover of it she found courage—”and now I feel so silly. Mr. Winston said you were all art students, and this is the only “arty” frock I’ve got — and now I feel like a person in a play. But I really did put it on because I thought you’d like it — I thought it was the right thing.”

  “So it is,” said Green Eyes, obviously struggling with some unexplained emotion; “it’s perfectly lovely. And so are you.”

  Daphne instantly felt at home. So, and not otherwise, might Columbine have spoken. A breath of the old familiar atmosphere of admiration came to her, like the air of June dawn.

  “Do help me,” she murmured across a pile of cushions; “it’s all so strange. And I feel that! We just come in and spoiled everything. And I’m not a pig, really. Really I’m not.”

  “I’ve got eyes,” said she whose eyes were green. “You’re not a pig. But I thought you were — superior.”