by Mary Clive
There was a burst of foolish grown-up laughter, and to change the subject I pointed to a large oil painting and asked what it was meant to be of. It was indeed a very strange picture. In the middle was a boy, or possibly a girl, dressed in armour and holding a sword in an affected sort of way. At the side a lady with powdered hair was running in and holding up her hands, also in an affected sort of way. Down at one corner crouched a mischievous-looking boy (or girl perhaps), and down at the other corner was a dead monster.
‘Why, that’s St George and the Dragon,’ said Lady Tamerlane. ‘I expect you all know the story.’
None of us could honestly say that we did.
‘How very shocking,’ said Lady Tamerlane, laughing. ‘Well, I must tell it to you.’
‘That will be delightful,’ I said. Rosamund kicked me. The Savages not only did not make pretty speeches themselves, they could not bear people who did. All the children gathered round except the Howliboos, who had been removed long ago, and Lionel, who went on playing tops by himself, bang – bang, clatter – clatter.
‘Well, once upon a time,’ began Lady Tamerlane in the special voice that she always put on when she was going to tell a story, ‘the kingdom of Silene was devastated by a terrible dragon.’
‘That’s not true!’ shouted Betty. She was standing full in front of her grandmother and the old lady blinked but went on.
‘Beautiful maidens had to be sacrificed to this monster. They were chosen by lot and then taken out into the wilderness where the dragon –’
‘That’s not true!’ shouted Betty again. The trouble with Betty was that ever since she had made Lionel cry by telling him that mermaids were ‘only pretend’ she had set up as the family debunker.
She wanted everyone to know that she was too clever to believe in fairies or magic, and she took the whole St George story to be a roundabout way of treating her like a baby. Perhaps it should also be mentioned that though Betty scorned fairies she was very frightened of witches, specially after dark, and if it came to dragons, no one scuttled faster past the Chinese hangings on the front stairs.
‘One day the lot fell upon the king’s own daughter, and with weeping and wailing she was led out into the wilderness to await the dragon.’
‘Not true!’ shouted Betty again, this time simply yelling and going purple in the face with the effort. As her grandmother had taken no notice of her other interruptions she imagined they had not been heard.
Lady Tamerlane looked round to see if Betty’s mother was there, but as she wasn’t she went on again, though slightly louder and faster.
‘Now it chanced that a knight called George was riding by, and hearing that a terrible dragon –’
‘Look who’s come,’ said Rosamund. We all turned round and saw with relief the silent figure of Minnie standing in the door, ready to take her. victim to bed. Betty recognized her doom and went obediently but with her hands over her ears and muttering ‘Not true, not true,’ till out of hearing and probably the whole way up to the nursery as well.
Lady Tamerlane finished her story in peace and we played Snakes and Ladders, and at intervals silent nursery maids appeared and removed both Harry and Peter. As the children thinned out the grown-ups seemed easier to get at, but just as I was about to make advances to the youngest and prettiest aunt, who I felt sure would appreciate me, we three girls, Peggy, Rosamund and myself, were told to run on up to bed.
We all linked arms and as soon as we got outside the door Rosamund said, ‘Listen, I have an idea. Don’t let’s go straight to bed. Instead, let’s run round the house.’
Peggy and I agreed at once, and with whispering and giggling we turned our backs on the dragon stairs and tiptoed through the shadows to the outer hall.
Here there was a strong smell of cigars and the murmur of gruff voices. Two of the uncles, knowing that the children’s hour was nearly over, had come out of their lair in the smoking room but had apparently not made up their minds where to go next. Once of them was in a leather armchair with a hood over it, rather like a sitting-down sentry box; the other had his back to us and we could only see the top of his bald head.
‘Let’s go and smack Uncle Algy on his bald head,’ suggested Rosamund.
‘Dare we?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes. Nobody minds Uncle Algy.’
We crept forward on our hands and knees, quiet as mice, or so we imagined; but mice really are not a bit quiet and our frocks rustled and crackled. The uncles went on talking, however, and we crawled closer and closer, until Rosamund the bold actually reared up with lifted hand ready for a smashing blow. At that moment the bald head reared up also and a face looked over the back of the chair, and the horrified Rosamund beheld, not the harmless, smiling wrinkles of her Great-Uncle Algy, but fierce moustaches and bulging eyes. ‘Aunt Muriel’s Husband!’ cried Rosamund.
‘Shoo!’ he cried, waving his newspaper above his head.
We sprang to our feet with a rending noise as Peggy trod on the flounce of her frock, and we dashed out of the hall and down a long passage. The passage was dark, being lit by only one gas lamp at the far end of it, but I followed the others blindly.
‘Salvation!’ cried Rosamund who read a lot of books and liked long words, and swerving suddenly, plunged into the dark under a flight of stairs. Peggy and I quickly followed, diving head first over a chintz-covered ottoman that stood in front of her hiding place.
For what seemed a very long time we lay in a heap with beating hearts waiting for the avengers, but no one came.
‘Who is Aunt Muriel’s Husband?’ I asked in a whisper.
‘Oh, he’s awful,’ said both girls. ‘Aunt Muriel married him and then she died, and now he can’t be got rid of.’
‘She left him behind with us like a fox leaves its scent,’ said Peggy to make it clearer.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Rosamund. ‘Even Grandmama abhors him.’
‘In that case what a pity you didn’t give him a real good bash,’ I said.
We giggled some more and waited some more, and then Rosamund said:
‘Let’s go to bed. If we creep up the blue stairs no one will see us.’
We stole cautiously out and tiptoed up the blue stairs, but at the top we suddenly felt safe and tore whooping down the long passage which led to the nursery wing. As we turned the corner whom should we see but old Lady Tamerlane going the round of the bedrooms to say goodnight. We tried to dash past her but she put out her arms and collared us.
To our amazement she did not seem to realize that we were desperadoes. She did not even seem to notice that we had been naughty. She merely kissed us and passed on.
Stunned by this escape we went in silence to our rooms.
Marguerite was waiting for me with my nightgown spread out on a chair and everything else ready for me. I was quite nice to her for a change, partly because I was too tired by the people I had met and the things I had seen to play her up, and partly because she reminded me of home. My London bedroom seemed so far away that I could hardly believe I had been in it no longer ago than that very morning.
‘What I’ve been through today!’ I said. Then my eye lit on the picture of the lady and the little boy which Mrs Peabody said was valuable. ‘I hope the burglars won’t come tonight – I’m simply too exhausted.’ The candle was placed so that the stags were in shadow but I could see the children on the wallpaper. The same ones were repeated over and over again and they were all so alike that it was difficult to count how many were actually different. Marguerite tucked me up and I kissed her without meaning to. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and then, ‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter. You’re not much good, Marguerite, but at least you do belong to me.’
One never knew how much Marguerite understood, but this was more polite than the sort of thing I usually said, and she looked surprised and pleased.
4. The Garden
Swing doors covered with green baize separated the back part of the house from the front. I never made out the ful
l extent of the back regions with the knife rooms and lamp rooms and boot-holes and store cupboards, let alone its warren of bedrooms, but I have a distinct recollection of looking in through the kitchen door and seeing meat roasting on a spit, though what turned the spit or how I got there I can’t remember. The only passage I was ever sure about was the way to Mrs Peabody’s sitting room.
This was one of the cosiest rooms in the house and we loved going to it. For one thing it was next door to the still room where two still-room maids were always making cakes, and there was generally a mixing-basin to lick out. For another thing it was as full of knick-knacks as a curiosity shop.
That first morning I was taken down to it by Peggy and Peter. Rosamund and Harry had gone out riding and Lionel had slipped away to his mother. The rest of the children were getting ready to go out, a weary process in nursery days.
You would have laughed at the clothes which we wore for playing in the garden. They were last year’s Sunday ones and were not at all suitable. My hat was a huge object made of velvet. The brim was lined with pleated satin and it was trimmed with a wreath of big satin roses. My coat had a floppy collar of broderie anglaise and we wore button boots which took a long time to do up and let in the water. However, we did not think that we looked funny, and as we had never heard of dungarees or wellington boots or pixie hoods, we didn’t want them. We went happily down to Mrs Peabody’s room and she was so kind to us that I changed my mind about her and decided that she was very nice after all.
She let us go round her room fingering everything and asking questions. Among her treasures which I can remember were a yellow china pillar as high as myself, a carved bear painting a landscape, a vase full of peacocks’ feathers and a model of Tamerlane Hall made in sugar. But the thing which really caught my fancy was a small glass swan.
There was nothing very extraordinary about it, but the moment I saw it I loved it. I stroked it and held it up to the light and resolved that when I grew up I should search the world until I found one like it.
Peter was more interested in a boomerang which Mrs Peabody’s brother who was dead had sent her from Australia. It was just a plain piece of wood with a bend in it, and she told us that the Australian natives threw it at animals and killed them with it. If they failed to hit the animal, the funny shape it was made it turn round and come back into their hands again.
We found this hard to believe, and Peter begged to be allowed to take it into the garden and try. Mrs Peabody did not really want to let him, as the boomerang was one of her greatest treasures, but no old lady could ever resist Peter’s angelic face and beautiful curls.
‘Well, all right,’ she said at last, ‘if you promise me to be very, very careful with it.’
We promised, and then we heard the rest of the nursery party descending upon us. Betty stumped in first, demanding Mrs Peabody’s collie dog, Kim, of whom she was very fond. She put her arms round his neck and kissed him again and again. She would insist that he was the ‘real Lord Tamerlane’ and owned everything in the house. She had noticed that this shocked and embarrassed the nurses so she made a point of saying it, especially in front of strangers.
‘Good morning, Lord Tamerlane,’ she said. ‘I hope you haven’t been missing me. I wanted to come before but I wasn’t let. Thank you for putting me in a bed instead of a cot. Tommy’s got the cot now. It’s a horrid one. You can’t see out of it.’
I don’t know how much of this Kim understood, but he certainly looked pleased to be made a fuss of, and he let Betty crawl over him while he sat with his mouth open panting hard and smiling.
Then the prams had to be got out and the four babies fitted into them. Mr O’Sullivan was flitting about – he always appeared when anything was happening. Nursery maids were sent upstairs for things that had been forgotten, and after several false starts they trundled off.
Betty went with the prams, so as to give Kim a walk. In a way these walks were painful to her, as she had an idea that the Jersey cows in the park would object to Kim being the same curious colour as themselves and suddenly rush down on him to punish him for it. As long as they were in the park she walked beside him with her hand on his collar to protect him, but it was anxious work for her.
We three big ones waved till they were out of sight and then went off to play in the garden. Marguerite was supposed to be looking after us, but she flitted round like a grey ghost and we took no notice of her whatever.
Soon we found that none of us could make the boomerang work, so we laid it on a seat and forgot about it.
‘Come on,’ said the Glens, ‘we’ll show you the garden.’
The garden of Tamerlane Hall had hardly any flower beds in it, but as it was winter that did not matter much. I chiefly remember cedar trees and mown grass. The lawns went wandering away into the distance, and one could hardly tell where the garden ended and where the park and woods began.
The Glens took me on a tour of the objects of interest, starting with a sundial which was so complicated that we could not imagine how it worked. Then we visited the large stone lions which lurked in the shrubbery. Peggy said that they used to be on either side of the entry gate, but horses shied at them, so they had been taken down and hidden away where people seldom went and horses never. They looked so sad that we put a handful of leaves in their stone mouths.
Then we went to the grotto, where we felt rather nervous as the roof was unsafe and we were only supposed to go into it occasionally. It was a darkish underground room decorated with shells arranged in patterns. Thousands of shells must have been used and I should have liked to stay and have a really good look at it, only we were afraid to stop in it long because of the roof. Peter even said he thought he saw it wobbling.
‘You wonder why anyone should bother to make it,’ said Peggy as we came away. She was not romantic.
‘Oh, but it’s lovely,’ I said. ‘And perhaps there’s a mystery to it.’
‘Mr O’Sullivan says that it’s a mystery how it’s stayed up as long as it has,’ said Peter.
On we went to the rubbish heap, which was one of the biggest and best rubbish heaps that I have ever had the good fortune to play on. In the middle was the life-sized statue of a Greek god who looked very cold standing there with arm outstretched above the dead leaves and decaying cabbage stalks.
‘Why is he here?’ I asked.
‘Oh, don’t you know?’ said Peter. ‘You’ve got to have one in a rubbish heap. Just got to.’ He turned suddenly to Peggy. ‘Isn’t that the corner where you have your Secret Place?’
Peggy and Lionel had a very irritating habit of making Secret Places and then whispering about them. The rest of the children tried hard to discover where they were, but they never could, because whenever they guessed right the Secret Place was at once moved to somewhere else.
Peggy had had so many Secret Places that she could not quite remember if that particular corner of the rubbish heap was one or not.
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ she said crossly.
Peter picked up a broken biscuit tin and looked inside. There were two old cartridges in it.
‘It is! It is!’ he cried.
Peggy became very bothered. She did not care about it herself but she knew that Lionel would be furious if she gave anything away.
‘You’re only a little squit,’ she said. ‘Squitty! Squitty! Squitty!’
‘I’m not! I’m not!’ shouted Peter, his angel face contorted with rage, and he rushed at her.
Peggy was much bigger than he was and she pushed him off easily. She was not quarrelsome by nature, and as Peter had entirely forgotten about the Secret Place she said peaceably,
‘Let’s go and look at the drawbridge.’
In one place the garden was divided from the park by a sunk fence which could be crossed by a plank which swung out from the wall on a hinge. We agreed to play at sieges, which was the game that was always played on it, but Peggy said:
‘Don’t let’s be Cavaliers and Roundheads.
Let’s be the children in Nana’s last place.’
Peter and I gladly agreed to this and we played happily at sieges for some time, even Marguerite being invited to join so as to make the sides even, though I don’t think she at all understood what the game was about.
Presently Peter said:
‘There’s Grandpapa.’
We all stopped playing and stood and stared at a little procession coming slowly along one of the paths. In front walked a fox terrier; then came an old man in a bowler hat, leaning forward as he pulled the long handle of a bath chair behind him. The bath chair was pushed from the back by a hospital nurse in a bonnet and cape, and in it was a bundle of rugs and a coat and a cloth cap and I suppose a face, only I didn’t really notice it.
The procession stopped when it came up to us and the old man who was pulling the chair seemed glad to straighten his back and stand upright. We talked a little to him and to the nurse and a lot to the dog who was called Pincher (which used to be a common name for dogs although it has now gone out of fashion).
When the procession had moved on again I asked:
‘Which was Grandpapa?’
‘I’m not quite sure if he was there,’ said Peter.
‘Of course he was, silly,’ said Peggy. ‘Do you think Pincher would have come out for a walk by himself?’
‘Oh, he may have been under those rugs,’ said Peter. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’
I expect Lord Tamerlane was really quite easy to see, but we weren’t interested in him and so we hadn’t bothered to look.
The stable clock struck three-quarters and we went back towards the house because at twelve o’clock we were always made to lie on our beds for an hour. It was known as ‘resting’, but I think the people who chiefly rested were the nurses. We were too old to sleep, and we weren’t allowed to read, and the boredom for us children was really much more exhausting than ordinary play.
When we got near the house we found that two aunts had come out and had found Mrs Peabody’s boomerang. They were taking it in turns to throw it, but they were not any cleverer than we had been, and the boomerang was going all over the place. They looked very funny, waving their arms and jerking their bodies, but they were nice, jolly aunts, and when we ran up and laughed at them, they laughed too. In fact everyone was having a good time when the smell of cigar told us that one of the men was bearing down on us.
