by Mary Clive
I sauntered over to the group of Savages and stood beside them. None of them raised their heads.
‘Shall I write something for your magazine?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Lionel, scribbling away hard. ‘This is going to be a very unusual magazine and all the stories admitted to it are going to be good.’
‘But I’d write a good story.’
‘You couldn’t.’
I returned sadly to the hearthrug where Tommy Howliboo was beating on an old tin with a stick.
‘Why are you doing that, Tommy?’
‘To keep away dwagons. Too many dwagons here.’
‘Were you frightened of the dragons last night?’
‘Course not. Me were only joking.’
He was a dear little boy when he was not frightened and I played with him for a bit, but I could not forget those older, bigger, more important children at the other end of the nursery, and I soon left him and went back to hover round the Savages. They still did not look up, but they made no objection to my reading the loose sheets of paper that were lying about on the floor; in fact Harry pushed a poem towards me with his foot. It was very short and went (I leave the spelling to your imagination):
Oh listen all ye Savages,
About to choose a bride.
Don’t choose a one with asthma
And don’t choose a one that’s died.
Rosamund was writing a story called ‘Nora’s Adventure’. It was about a girl who was sent to school to improve her, and she got into the train at a small station in the north of Scotland. ‘She sat sadly without looking up for a few minutes but as the whistle sounded something flashing in at the window attracted her attention. It was a splendid golden eagle. He caught Nora in his beak as the train began to move. Now although Nora was tall she was thin and light and so the eagle carried her quite easily. There was a strong wind blowing so neither the stationmaster nor the porter in the little Highland station heard her cries …’
‘I’m sure the porter would have noticed,’ I said, wishing to find fault.
‘He might have on an ordinary day,’ said Rosamund, ‘but I’ve specially told you that a strong wind was blowing.’
‘And also, if you said that Nora was small for her age it would be better.’
But Rosamund could not bring herself to make her heroine small for her age.
‘No, it wouldn’t. I’ve said she was thin and light and that’s quite enough.’
I shrugged my shoulders, which was a gesture I was very fond of. I thought it grown-up but the Savages called it affected.
Lionel wrote so quickly that he had already covered many pages. His story was about school life and was called ‘What happened to boys who committed murder and other bad things don’t take their example’. In the preface he explained that ‘the habits of the school are much like those of the school I am at’, and as I had never been to school myself I read with interest to see what it was really like. Lionel’s writing was terribly difficult, but as far as I could make out, school was a very tough place indeed. For instance, in the chapter called ‘Trinity Sunday’ they were all in the school chapel when there was a smashing of glass and a spear came flying through the window. ‘It hit Ritard. With a cry he rose and walked out of the pew and fell dead in the aisle. The captain of the school carried him out and the service went on as if nothing had happened …’
Lionel, I knew, was not happy at school and really I was not at all surprised.
Writing stories looked so easy that I got some paper by tearing the flyleaves out of several books. To find a pencil with a point was harder, but fortunately I had had a diary in my stocking, so I took the pencil out of that and was soon scribbling away as fast as the others.
My story was about some children who had a shell grotto in their garden, and they dug up the floor of it and found some buried treasure underneath. So then they were immensely rich, much richer than any of the grown-ups, and they never had to do a thing they didn’t like ever again. The buried treasure had been put there by smugglers, and that part I copycatted from a story about smugglers that was in a Chatterbox Annual which I had got for Christmas. Chatterbox had been kept in my bedroom and no one had read it except myself, so I knew that the others would not be able to catch me out.
But the others wouldn’t even look at my story.
‘We really don’t want it, Evelyn,’ said Rosamund, as kindly as she could, after whispering to Lionel, who said, not at all kindly:
‘Take the bally thing away.’
I was disappointed and hurt. To make things worse, when the time came for me to go out for our morning walk I was slow getting ready and when I arrived downstairs I found that everyone was paired off and no one seemed to want me as a third, so that I felt more left out of it than ever.
I walked along the muddy road beside Marguerite who, as usual, was totally silent, and I brooded over my wrongs and over the beautiful buried treasure in the grotto which I had taken the trouble to invent but in which no one would take any interest.
I brooded all through rest and all through dinner, and after dinner when we were turned out into the garden, I said:
‘Don’t count me in the eena-meena. I’m not going to play. I’m going to see if I can’t find this buried treasure.’
‘What buried treasure?’ asked Rosamund, falling into the trap.
‘The buried treasure your grandmother was talking about,’ I said.
‘When was she talking about buried treasure?’ asked Rosamund.
‘I think I did hear her say something about buried treasure,’ said Harry, unexpectedly coming to my help. Harry was so given to romancing himself that he really didn’t know the difference between what really happened and what was just make-up. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be listening, but I do remember her saying, “Sure as eggs is eggs there’s a blinking great packet.” ’
‘I’m sure Grandmama never said anything of the sort,’ said Rosamund. ‘You’ve been reading something.’
‘Didn’t she?’ said Harry. ‘Oh, well, I remember now, what she said was, “The lucky beggar who finds it will get a tidy-sized ’oard.” ’
‘Well, where did she say it was?’ asked everybody.
‘It was,’ said Harry slowly, looking up at the sky. ‘Let me see …’ His eyes wandered round searching for a likely place.
‘I thought she said it was buried in the grotto,’ I suggested softly.
‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Grandmama, when she buried her buried treasure, did bury it in the grotto.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ said Peggy, who was much the most sensible of the lot – in fact I might say the only sensible one of the lot, ‘Grandmama wouldn’t bury treasure. She can’t dig for one thing.’
‘Harry’s got it a little wrong,’ I said, ‘the buried treasure has been in the grotto for ages and ages, only no one dares to dig it up because of the roof not being safe, and people only going into it occasionally.’
‘But who put it there?’ asked Peggy.
‘Smugglers,’ I replied at once.
‘But there couldn’t have been smugglers here. We’re miles from the seaside,’ said Lionel.
‘That’s why they came, of course,’ I said. ‘It was a safe place. The coastguards would look everywhere at the seaside but they wouldn’t think of looking here.’
‘True,’ said Rosamund.
I could see that they were interested and, certain that none of them had read my Chatterbox, I went on, ‘They were called the Nightriders because they rode by night. They had to get the treasure to London and, if you come to think of it, we are plumb in the way between London and the sea.’
After I had said this I wondered if I was right, but to my relief the older ones, who knew a little geography, agreed that this was so.
‘Let’s go and dig it up,’ said Peter who, being young, thought things much easier than they are.
‘We might at any rate go and inspect the grotto,’ said Rosamund.
W
e went off to the corner of the garden where the grotto was. It looked very mysterious and a very suitable place for buried treasure, and even I began to think that there might be some there. Straggly laurel bushes cast a shadow over it, and the steps leading down to it glistened with damp.
Lionel descended the steps, unlocked the door and looked in. There were no windows, but a greenish light came through a ventilator in the roof, and when the door was wide open one could see all round the curious little place.
‘I suppose it was the smugglers who brought all those shells with them,’ said Rosamund, pressing close behind Lionel.
‘Of course it was,’ he answered. ‘And now to find where the treasure is hidden.’
The floor was paved with large pebbles of different colours arranged in a pattern. In the middle was a large six-sided star made up of two interlacing triangles (which Lionel said was a magic sign) and there were smaller stars all round it.
Before very long the children had forgotten about the dangerous roof and were all inside the grotto. I smiled to myself as I watched them examining the floor, treading on each other’s toes and getting in each other’s light. Suddenly Rosamund screamed:
‘By my halidom! One of the stars is blue!’
Sure enough. All the stars were made of brown pebbles except one which was made of blue pebbles.
‘That’s it!’
‘That must be it!’
‘The spades!’
‘Quick!’
We tore back to the house, myself with the rest, and plunged under the wooden stairs where the garden tools were kept. This black hole was always called the conservatory by the Savages because at home they kept their garden bric-à-brac in an old greenhouse and they imagined that conservatory was another name for tool shed. Toy wheelbarrows, dolls’ prams, croquet mallets were thrown on to the heads of those at the rear by those in front, who worked like dogs down a rabbit hole, and soon the children were rushing back to the grotto, each carrying some sort of implement. I followed more slowly with nothing in my hands.
‘Do you think we ought to do it?’ asked Peggy as they bundled down the steps. ‘Suppose the roof fell in on us.’
Harry prodded the roof with a spade.
‘That there roof be a-going to last another fifty years agone,’ he said in such an old, wise voice that everyone felt reassured.
‘And anyway,’ said Lionel, ‘we are allowed to go into the grotto occasionally, and if this isn’t an occasion I should like to know what is.’ He hit the blue star with his hoe, which being a small toy one crumpled up and the head came off.
‘We must prise up the stones one by one,’ said Rosamund, kneeling down in a puddle and beginning to hack away with a trowel.
I had not gone inside. There wasn’t any room for one thing, and for another I was getting ready to tell them that I had taken them in. I leant languidly against the door, laughing to myself to see them smash the flooring, and as I did so my hand chanced to rest on the key.
The temptation was too great. I could not resist it. Indeed, I don’t think I even tried to. With all my force I slammed the door on the whole lot of them and locked it.
At once shouts and howls came from the inside.
‘Here!’
‘Evelyn!’
‘Don’t be an ass!’
‘You’re not funny!’
‘Open it!’
‘Open it!’
‘Let us out!’
‘You must!’
‘Betty’s frightened!’
‘Open it!’
‘Evelyn!’
‘You beast!’
‘The roof will come down and it will be all your fault.’
Their voices did not reach very far as the grotto was underground, and I walked away briskly and was soon out of earshot. I felt delighted with myself, as though I had been both good and clever, and I minced along carrying an imaginary parasol and imitating the fine ladies whom I used to see walking in Hyde Park.
Presently I met Lord Tamerlane’s bath chair complete with pusher, nurse, dog, and of course Lord Tamerlane. I went up to them with my best society air, and stroked Pincher and said good afternoon very charmingly to the nurse.
‘All alone!’ said the nurse.
‘Yes,’ I said, with a little sigh. ‘I find children so fatiguing after a time. Don’t you?’
The nurse looked amused and said, ‘Enough is as good as a feast.’
Here there came murmurs from under the rugs. Lord Tamerlane had noticed a stick lying on the lawn and he wanted it taken away. I ran to the stick, picked it up and stuffed it into a rhododendron bush. Lord Tamerlane, who had been getting quite excited, sank back relieved. However, the effort seemed to have done him good, for he fumbled under the rug and then handed me what I at first thought was half a sovereign, but it turned out to be a chocolate wrapped in gold paper and stamped to look like a coin.
‘How are you feeling today?’ I asked politely as I ate the chocolate.
‘It’s cold weather for July,’ he replied in a very faint voice. I did not know whether he was trying to be funny or not.
‘Perhaps it will snow,’ I said. ‘Then we could toboggan on tea trays. Do you like tobogganing? I mean, did you like tobogganing?’
‘My friend Ballyshannon has very good shooting on his bog,’ said Lord Tamerlane, making a stupendous effort. ‘Very good, only wet … wet …’
His voice faded away. He was obviously exhausted.
‘He doesn’t often say as much as that,’ said the nurse. ‘He must have taken a fancy to you.’
Encouraged by this remark I walked along beside the bath chair for a bit, chatting to the nurse. Presently the bath chair was turned in the direction of the front door and the nurse said:
‘Well, we’ve had our little walkey, and now it’s time for our little snoozey.’ So I said goodbye and went back over the lawn towards the grotto.
As I got nearer I grew a bit nervous as no sound came from it, and the horrid idea occurred to me that perhaps they were all dead. Someone had told me the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and my hand shook as I turned the key and pulled open the door. What would I see within? I hardly dared to look.
However, no one was dead, or even lying down. They were all there, standing upright, only cold, cobwebby and cross.
‘I’m glad the roof didn’t come in,’ I said.
‘Are you?’ said Rosamund in a sarcastic voice, pushing past me.
Betty stopped in the doorway.
‘But what about the treasure?’ she asked. ‘Now the door’s open and we can see, aren’t we going to dig for it?’
‘No,’ said Rosamund.
‘There isn’t any treasure,’ I said. ‘I made it all up and took you in. You were all taken in.’
‘I thought all along that it was pretty fishy,’ said Lionel.
‘Anyone can tell lies,’ said Harry. I felt this remark came badly from him but I let it pass.
‘What shall we say when they ask us why we’re so dirty?’ said Peggy. ‘We can’t say we’ve been in the grotto because you know we’re not really allowed in it at all.’
‘Call it Hide and Seek,’ said Rosamund.
They agreed to call it Hide and Seek.
‘Oughtn’t we to try to tidy up the floor?’ said Harry.
The floor was rather a giveaway as they had managed to chip out a good many pebbles, but no one wanted to go back into the grotto again.
‘The girls must do it,’ said Lionel.
‘I like that,’ said Rosamund.
Of course in the end it was Rosamund and Peggy who did go back to try to make the floor look as if it had not been disturbed, but they found it impossible, as in wrenching out the pebbles the cement had been smashed up and so nothing fitted. The best they could do was to arrange a few blue pebbles in a sort of star and to throw the ones that were left over into the laurels.
‘But I’m afraid they will notice the floor,’ said Harry sadly. ‘It doesn’t look right som
ehow.’
‘Do it better yourself,’ snapped Rosamund.
Peter stepped forward.
‘I know,’ he said. With unusual firmness he shut the door, locked it, took out the key and threw it after the pebbles. ‘That’s that,’ he said.
Everyone applauded him.
‘You’re like the friend of Charles I whose motto was “Thorough”,’ said Rosamund.
‘Nana always does say that Peter is surprisingly thoughtful for a boy,’ said Peggy.
Peter blushed, overwhelmed by these compliments from the big girls. He looked down and said modestly:
‘It wasn’t all me. I think it was partly the Voice of Conscience that whispered, “Peter, take that key and throw it into the laurels”.’
A couple of nursery maids were seen in the distance, obviously sent to fetch us in. We were glad to see them. It was a dark afternoon and getting cold.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Lionel as we moved towards the house, ‘Evelyn must be tried for this. We will try her by court martial.’
‘What’s a court martial?’ I asked with sinking heart.
‘It’s a military trial,’ said Lionel, getting interested in his idea. ‘It’s what they have for spies and traitors. And at the end the prisoner is usually shot at dawn.’
‘I don’t want to be shot at dawn,’ I said. ‘Or at any other time either. Besides, you haven’t got a gun.’
‘We could make bows and arrows,’ said Lionel dreamily. ‘St Sebastian was shot with arrows.’
‘I don’t believe St Sebastapol was shot with arrows,’ said Betty, contradictious as ever. ‘He was shot with a cannonball. Grandmama told me so.’
‘There’s always our Red Indian tomahawks,’ said Peter, tactfully changing the subject.
‘And my Green Indian tomahawk,’ said Betty.
I was terrified. I really believed that they were capable of killing me. Of course I might have told the grown-ups but somehow that never occurred to me. Perhaps it was because the grown-ups all seemed to belong to the Savages much more than to me. On my side there was nobody but Marguerite, and she was no good to anyone.
‘Let’s have it at once,’ said Harry.
Fear made me unusually clever.
