The Fountain Overflows

by Rebecca West

She whispered back, “Oh, but the Mammas would not like it.” She was convulsed with a painful attack of stammering, but I had no mercy on her. Though it was largely my recognition that she knew more than other people which give me confidence in the extraordinary character of my family, I at once told myself that she did not do nearly as well at school as I did and I need pay no attention to what she said.

  I stood up and said, “Please, I can do a trick,” and Aunt Lily said, “There’s a clever kiddy. Come out here and do it, I’m sure we’ll all enjoy it.”

  The tigerskin in front of the fireplace had been lifted so that the two girls could do their dances, and I stood myself in the cleared space. Aunt Lily asked, “It isn’t a rough trick, is it?” and looked up at the curios on the mantelpiece. Without using my thought-reading powers I knew that if I broke anything she would be terribly blamed, and I liked the people in this house even less.

  “No,” I said. “Let me put my hands on each side of your face. Now think of a number. Think of it hard.” Up it came, slowly and clumsily, like a wheelbarrow being trundled out of a dark stable, fifty-three. She squealed, “But that’s the very number I was thinking of,” and everybody in the room gasped as if they were watching fireworks.

  I was afraid I would not be able to do it again, but of course I could. Elsie Biglow, the girl who had recited “Lasca,” was the first to come up and as soon as my hands pressed into her plump cheeks I knew that she would think of an even number, even before it floated before me like a perfectly symmetrical pear floating in a syrup. I was, of course, performing an action which presents hardly more mystery than the undoubted fact that a person standing some feet away from the keyboard of a piano and speaking clearly will cause certain notes to sound of their own accord, often quite loudly. The only difference in the thought-reading trick is that it is not a question of transmitting a wave to a detached object, but of receiving it. Countless children have discovered this way of amusing themselves, and if there was anything remarkable about my performance it was in the invariability of my success. I never gave a wrong number till after twenty minutes or so, when I suddenly felt very tired and would not go on. But I had won the distinction I had wanted. All the girls were looking at me as they did at the head of the school or the winner of the tennis championship.

  I went back to Rosamund and said, “You see, it was all right,” but she did not answer. She was heavy and pale, as if she had suddenly caught a cold. But then we went in to tea, which was very good. There were several cakes made in the new way which had just been introduced from America, in layers with butter icing between them; and there was something we had never seen before, brandy snaps rolled up in cornets full of whipped cream. Even Rosamund cheered up over them. Then we went back to the drawing room, ready to play whatever game was proposed, since it was not polite to go home immediately after tea. But the parlourmaid came in and said something to Aunt Lily, and she nodded and tiptoed over to us and she wanted me to go into the dining room and speak to Nancy’s Mamma for a minute. At this I felt frightened. I did not want to see that tall, rude, too dark woman again, and I turned to Rosamund, whom I had been despising a short time before, and said quite urgently, “You will come too?” She nodded, and it interested me, and even a little disturbed me, to see that when Aunt Lily tried to intimate that she was not required, Rosamund assumed that blind look which I had almost believed to be beyond her control, the result of either some actual defect of sight or of absorption in her inner life; and she pressed forward at my side in the dining room, completely a big stupid girl, who never sees when she is not wanted.

  At the disordered table sat Mrs. Phillips, the light pouring down from the big brass chandelier on her raw-boned handsomeness, her purple gown. She said angrily, “Look, Lil, all the cakes carried down the very first moment the kids are out of the room, and all the dirty china left. You bet they’re having a grand guzzle in the kitchen, and we’ll have a late washing-up, for all I said they could have the char in, and a scamped dinner again. I don’t think we’ve ever had a set of girls I hated worse. But there’s two children. When you came up to my room you only spoke of one.”

  “It’s this one that’s Rose, the clever little kiddy,” said Aunt Lily. “The other one’s just with her, chums, you know.”

  “This is my cousin Rosamund,” I said, and Rosamund said gravely, with an affectation of simplicity, “How do you do?”

  “How do you do,” said Mrs. Phillips irritably. “Rose, this thought-reading you do, I suppose it’s some sort of trick?”

  I stared into her eyes and said coldly, “How could it be a trick?”

  She surprised me by cringing. “Of course, of course. I didn’t mean anything. But could you do it with me?”

  I might have said, “I am too tired.” But I was glad of an opportunity to show this stupid and repulsive grown-up that I had powers of a sort that evidently impressed her. I got up and walked over to her with a deliberation in which there was some showmanship, and put my hands on each side of her face, loathing my contact with her hot skin. She was not really so very dark, not nearly so dark as would put her outside the limits beyond which it is recognized that admiration must stop; yet I felt that if she were any darker she would have been as revolting as if she had been entirely covered with the stain of a birthmark. It was not comfortable, reading her mind. Had there been numbers more uneven than odd ones her choice would have lain among them. I did it for her twice, to establish my superiority, and I refused her a third test, for the pleasure of refusing her.

  When I was back in my seat, she asked me if my cousin and I would like more cake. I said thank you, no, we had had all we wanted at teatime, and that it had been lovely, particularly the brandy snaps filled with whipped cream. She looked round the table and saw that there were none left, and told Aunt Lily to run down to the kitchen and put some more on a plate, she knew there were lots, for that was the sweet for dinner. But I said thank you, no, we had had as many as we wanted at teatime. Then she asked, smiling, if we had not a corner for another chocolate or two. It was at once amusing and horrible to see a grown-up so anxious to please a schoolgirl. When I said no, we really wanted nothing, Mrs. Phillips fell silent and for a moment drew a pattern on the tablecloth with her finger, while we looked round the room. They had all sorts of things we did not have at home, particularly on the sideboard, where there were two silver biscuit boxes and a cut-glass and silver thing with whisky in it, which I knew was called a tantalus, because my mother never could see one in a shop-window without pausing and bursting into indignant cries, because it had a mechanical device by which nobody without a key could open it, so that the servants should not steal a drink, and it seemed to her to advertise brutally a condition of mistrust. It was also interesting for me to see what leather-covered chairs were like when they were not worn out and torn like ours.

  “Well, you’re a very clever little girl,” said Mrs. Phillips in tones indicative of impatience and dislike, and I rose and put out my hand as if to bid her good-bye, pretending that I thought this all she wanted. She did not take it and abruptly asked me whether I could tell fortunes; and Aunt Lily leaned forward in her chair, the light from the chandelier shining very brightly on the bridge of her nose, and slowly rubbed her thin hands together as if she were very anxious to hear the answer.

  I was astonished by the question. To begin with, I thought them too old to be interested in the future. Mrs. Phillips was Nancy’s Mamma, and her sister was Nancy’s aunt, and that was the status which had been awarded them by destiny. What else did they think would or could happen to them? Also I was aware that only someone fairly stupid could take the simple act I had performed as an earnest that I could knock down the walls between the present and the future. My contempt for the household increased; and so did my desire to torment and jeer at its mistress. I said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I can.”

  I heard Rosamund’s sigh through Mrs. Phillips’s harsh uplifted voice. “Well, let’s have a go at it no
w. We can slip upstairs to my bedroom.”

  “No,” I said cruelly. “I couldn’t do it now.”

  “Why not?” asked Mrs. Phillips.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do it now,” I repeated, enjoying her incompletely concealed exasperation.

  “Not if you have some chocolates?” said Mrs. Phillips.

  “No, not if I had anything,” I said. I could have laughed aloud at her expression of defeated hunger.

  She had been playing with a teaspoon. Her tense fingers sent it flying to the floor, and Rosamund and poor Aunt Lily grovelled for it. Mrs. Phillips and I were left facing each other across the table, the two principals in the business.

  “Well,” she said, surrendering, “when could you do it?”

  After a long pause I said Mamma did not like us to do it. I should not have brought Mamma into this horrid business, and for a minute I saw Mamma as she looked when she was very angry, her thin white face shining like polished bone. But when Papa told us about the times when he used to go fishing in Ireland and we said it must have been cruel, he said yes, he supposed it was, but there was something entrancing about playing a trout. I said, “We will come tomorrow.” But instantly I made up my mind to do nothing of the sort. I was sickened by her greed and by her submission to my cruelty. Grown-ups ought to have their pride, and I saw that I was making Rosamund unhappy. She now looked more than ever as if she had started a cold and was blowing her nose a lot. But Mrs. Phillips’s nostrils spread broadly because she thought she had conquered me. She said that I must come about three, and we would get over the fortune-telling first, and then we would have tea, and she would see that there were plenty of brandy snaps. Then doubt came into her eyes. It occurred to her that I might possibly mean to disappoint her, and she said, “Lily, run up and get that new box of chocolates from my room, it will be nice for them.” I nearly said we did not like chocolates, it would have teased her so, but I wanted them for Richard Quin. While Aunt Lily was upstairs and we three were alone, it was awkward, there was nothing we could find to say, Mrs. Phillips was so obviously thinking of something with such fixity. The box Aunt Lily brought back was bigger than any Rosamund and I had ever seen, and it was tied up with very pretty pink ribbon, enough for hair-ribbons for both of us. When I thanked Mrs. Phillips I spoke of the ribbon, and she said, looking at my dress in a calculating way, “Oh, you like pretty things, do you?” She was ready to give me anything if I would tell her fortune.

  She did not expect us to go back to the other children; we had assumed a special importance in her eyes. She took us straight to the room where we had left our outdoor things, and was watching me put on my outdoor shoes with an expression that was at once hostile and obsequious, when the front door was opened with a bump. Whoever came in made a great noise in the passage, rubbing his shoes on the mat, pulling off what was evidently a very heavy overcoat, and singing the first two lines of “Old Simon the Cellarer” over and over again. We knew, of course, that it was Nancy’s Papa. This was the hour when Papas came home: when such sounds, of a different quality, brought to my Mamma’s face a look of apprehension, which vanished altogether before delight if he were friendly and began to tell her all his news, but which hardened into a grimace of dread if he were in a bad mood and sat down in the big chair without taking any notice of anybody and read the evening paper. It was the hour when Constance and Rosamund in their cold and bare home turned towards the hall the obstinate calm faces which announced that though Cousin Jock was their enemy, they would do nothing against him. Of course I hoped Nancy’s Papa would come in, for it was always interesting to see other people’s Papas, but Nancy’s Mamma was plainly hoping that he would not. I knew she would not want him to hear about the fortune-telling, I had never seen a grown-up more furtive; and, indeed, when he made his appearance he proved to be the kind of person you do not want about when you are trying to do anything, whether it is allowed or not. Rosamund and I simply wanted to go home, and Mrs. Phillips wished for nothing else; but it became impossible for any of us three to take action to that end once Nancy’s Papa came into the room.

  He was not so bad, really. Of course, he was nothing like so handsome and wonderful as my Papa, nobody, not a single person at that school or at the schools of music where Mary and I studied later, had a father like ours. But Mr. Phillips seemed to be completely happy, which was surprising, in this unhappy house. When he came in he said to his wife, “Hello, how’s my trouble and strife?” and put his arm round her waist and pulled her face over so that he could kiss her. She did not help him, she just let her face go the way he was pulling, the way you are told to go with the bicycle when you are learning to ride. But of course it was very bad manners of him to kiss his wife in front of us. Then he said, “Who are these young ladies? Which is Claribel, which is Anna Matilda? Which is going to marry my son?” Of course we had to pretend to laugh. “Oh, that won’t do,” he said. “One of you has got to marry my son, that’s why I’m giving him a slap-up education, that’s the only reason I’ve sent him to Brighton College, so that he can marry Claribel or Anna Matilda.” He went on and on like that, until Mrs. Phillips tugged at his sleeve and said that we wanted to get home. “Home?” he said. “Claribel and Anna Matilda want to get home, well, there’s nothing simpler. I take them in the motor-car.”

  At that Mrs. Phillips gave a low moan. “They don’t live far away,” she told her husband, “and George won’t like being taken from his tea.”

  “Nonsense, you funny old trouble and strife,” he said, “you don’t understand Georgie-Porgie, old Georgie-Porgie’ll do anything for me, adores me, he won’t mind a bit giving up the last bite of toast. And Claribel and Anna Matilda will be as pleased as punch, going home in a motor-car, won’t they? What’ll the family say, seeing Claribel and Anna Matilda come home in a real live motor-car? Why, look at the two of them, the mere thought of it has set ’em grinning like a couple of cats with a saucer of cream, though they’re much prettier, being young ladies.”

  Here he was quite right. We were intoxicated past speech by the idea of going home, or going anywhere, in a motor-car. Some months before, Papa, in the course of a visit to a Scottish peer who admired his political writings, had been driven to and from the station in such a vehicle; but he did such things, he had crossed the Andes on a mule, and had rounded the Cape of Good Hope four times, and had lived for a whole summer just below Pike’s Peak. We had never hoped to rival our father in that sphere. We knew that motor-cars were the way people would travel in the future, but that brought us no nearer them, for as they grew more common we became more poor, and they were fabulously expensive. We knew that, for Mamma had read out of the paper that one cost 1020 pounds and she said it seemed shameful when there was no opera in England outside London and little enough inside it.

  It would be quite extraordinary if we had got up that morning thinking everything was going to be just the same as usual and were to come home that evening in a motor-car. Of course we told Mr. Phillips that it was very kind of him, but he need not trouble; all the same we kept our eyes on his face to see if he were going to believe us, and happily he did not. Then it all became awkward, for he went away to get George, and we were left with Mrs. Phillips, who looked very cross and dark. She no longer tried to placate me and we sat there saying nothing, and feeling ashamed of not being embarrassed, we were so excited. Then Mr. Phillips came in with George, and it certainly appeared as if he had been wrong about George adoring him so much that he would not mind being taken from his tea, for George looked very cross, as cross as Mrs. Phillips.

  The two men had both put on huge coats and caps with deep peaks and earflaps, and Mr. Phillips made his wife go and fetch rugs and shawls to wrap round us, which made her look more hollow-eyed and grim than ever. She really was not nice at all, she was wanting something very fiercely and dryly, it felt like a sore throat, and yet she could not make allowances for other people’s wanting anything, she thought it was tiresome of us not to have
refused to let Mr. Phillips take us home. Aunt Lily was much nicer. She came out of the drawing room to help the servants bring in the lemonade that you get at a party when it is time for you to go home, and found us in the hall, waiting till the motor-car stopped at the gate, because Mr. Phillips and George said they did not want us to get in till they had brought it out of the coach-house, because the fumes in there were always rather horrid. When Mrs. Phillips saw her, she said, “Here, you take over,” and told us that she was so sorry but she had not had her full rest, she must go upstairs and get what she could before dinner. We watched her go slowly up the stairs, looking at the carpet as if her fortune were written there. But Aunt Lily was very pleasant, and when Mr. Phillips opened the front door and asked where the two lovely ladies were who were going to Gretna Green with him and George, she shook hands with us, and bent down to whisper in my ear that she hoped that I would spare five minutes for old Auntie Lil when the fortunes were being told. I wished I had not started the whole business. As she whispered the bit of her that was most visible to me was her high net collar, held up by transparent pieces of whalebone and edged round the top with narrow lace, and the wild version she had made of this very usual fashion showed a vein of fantasy in her which no fortune-teller could satisfy.

  Of course it was interesting to drive in a motor-car. The miracle of not being pulled by anything, of the nothingness in front of the driver, was more staggering than can now be believed, partly because it would seem impossible that people so long accustomed to trains should have been so startled by the motor-car. But a locomotive closely resembles an animal in its ardour and its breathy moodiness, and anyway it was there, in front of the carriage you sat in, pulling a weight, according to a principle grasped not only by the mind but also by the muscles. But to sit in anything which moved along by some impulse within itself, which seemed to have nothing to do with the lever and the fulcrum, was an experience which neither the brain nor the arms nor the legs could understand. Rosamund and I sat in a bewildered ecstasy which continued unabated for some time, surviving several discouragements. For there was no windscreen and we were blown about as if we stood on an Atlantic headland. There was also a pestilential atmosphere, far worse than now seems credible on the mechanical facts. I cannot think why the interior of this motor-car, winnowed by the gale of its passage, should have been as murky and evil-smelling as a tunnel in the old underground. Though Rosamund and I were very happy we felt very sick, partly because of the fumes, and partly because of our violent and irregular progress. The car went ahead quickly and passionately for a hundred or two hundred yards at a time, then halted with a spine-jerking crash, and either started again or ran backwards for some yards and stopped in a paroxysm of asthma, till George, crying to Mr. Phillips, “Don’t you touch nothing,” got us going again.