“Baby !” he said, pointing at the nearest dazzle. “Look, Baby! Look at the Goombies !”
Eithne gave a crow of delight. She agreed to everything. Rapturously, she rocked herself up and down, beating the palms of her hands on her upturned toes.
Dermot was not quite satisfied that she understood.
“Look, Baby. Look—there in the light, all dancing. Fairies. Goombies.”
“Ee-eee-ee-ee,” sang Eithne, and jumped herself up and down on her behind. She gave him one of her quick delighted glances, and laughed with glee.
“Goombies,” repeated Dermot to himself, solemnly. It was a good word to say. He said it with relish. “Goombees”: those would be the big, fat, grandfather ones? No, he decided, he liked it best said quickly, so as to make them sound little and lively: “Goombies.”
Hullo. There were Mummy and Daddy, waving to them from the gate. He had forgotten all about keeping watch. He pointed excitedly, and Eithne, looking everywhere and nowhere, waved her hand in welcome to the whole world.
This memory recalled an incident, which must have happened the following winter, for Eithne was able to run all over the place, and the two watched now, not from the nursery window, but from a small side window in the hall. Eithne, a solemn looking little thing, except for the quick crinkle of a smile she had kept from babyhood, stood close beside him, watching down the Avenue. It was earlier in the year, or earlier in the afternoon: anyway, not so dark.
“Here they come,” cried Dermot, suddenly catching sight of the two tall figures. He always felt a quick thrill of thankfulness and recognition, even now that he was bigger, and knew no harm was likely to happen to them in the town.
“Oo. Where? Oo.”
Eithne pushed impetuously forward, and, as she did so, bumped against a stool, on which stood an enormous yellow vase. Aware of the collision, she spun round ; and both watched with horrified eyes the huge vase topple, slip, and fall with a reverberating crash upon the floor.
For a few seconds Eithne gazed appalled. Then, uttering a little bubble of sound, she fled from the wreck as fast as her fat little legs would carry her, out of the hall, into the night nursery, and far, far in, under the remotest corner of Munny’s bed: whence her mother had the greatest difficulty in coaxing her. Besides the shock of the crash, she had an intellectual cause for terror. Some days before, she had heard her father in high indignation over the careless breaking of a valuable teacup: and, contrasting the size of this with the vase, she supposed that nothing short of death could atone for so enormous a misdeed. An hour was needed, and all manner of comfortings, before she sobbed herself to sleep.
Soon after the return from Ireland, Dermot left the kindergarten, but not before the marvellous and unexpected pleasure of a visit from Uncle Ben. The mariner arrived unheralded at breakfast time. With shouts of laughter, opening his arms wide, he lifted their mother off her feet, wrung their father by the hand, and filled the house with the uproar of his delight. Feeling a little “mousey,” as he put it, he had taken a week off, boarded his beloved B. & I, and made the voyage to Plymouth. Here he would stay two days “if you’ll have me, Mar, me child,” and catch the boat on her return journey, to arrive home set up, with all the mousiness blown out of him. Dermot heard the noise from the nursery, and thought the world must be turned upside down. When he appeared, stupefied, hardly able to believe his ears, he was seized and held right up in the air, high over Uncle Ben’s head.
“Ben, you madman,” laughed Dermot’s father presently, “what on earth time were you up this morning?”
“Oh, faith, Ernest boy, the usual time. The usual time. Six o’clock—when they’re swabbing down the decks.”
“And the hose on you?”
Margaret wrinkled up her nose in mock horror.
“And the hose on me,” said Uncle Ben, with complacency. “Sure, where would I be without me bath?”
Strange and wonderful it was, to have Uncle Ben in the house. He was not like the bone spoon, all wrong out of his own place. He brought himself, a real bit of Ireland, unchallenged, triumphant, into the foreign land. That very morning, he insisted on accompanying Dermot to the kindergarten. Dermot hesitated for a moment whether to take his toy monkey with him as usual. Uncle Ben might laugh at him. But the toy monkey was a link with Paddy, and Paddy meant Ireland: so the toy monkey went, and, far from laughing, Uncle Ben took the liveliest interest in disposing of him, during lesson-time, in his hiding place: a kind of box, built into the wall, so that the front door key should not chip a hole in it when the door swung back. It was wonderful, walking down beside Uncle Ben in the sunny October morning, hearing about Ireland.
“Have you been to Walmer Villa, Uncle Ben?”
“Yes, yes, Dermot boy. I took a cup of tea with them, only last Friday.”
Only last Friday.
“Was the fire all bright over the wall: all twinkly in the things on the sideboard?”
Uncle Ben stared.
“Faith, son—oh yes, bedad, so it was. So it was. Till Bessie brought the lamp in.”
Dermot stopped still in the road, with parted lips, seeing it all so vividly that it hurt. Then they walked for a minute in silence, Uncle Ben stroking his moustache, and glancing down curiously at Dermot.
“Did you see Paddy?”
“Oho, faith, I did.” Uncle Ben threw back his head, and his voice echoed in the prim road. “I never go there but I have a word with me little Paddy-boy.”
“Was he very well?”
“He was. He was glad to see me, too, the little chap. He hasn’t anyone to play with, d’ye see.”
That brought back another sad thing, Bessie’s letter, written only ten days after they left. “Paddy-monkey does be missing you dreadful.” Poor Paddy-monkey. Still, he had to get used to it, as Mummy said. He had no one but Bessie and Granny, for nearly all the year.
It was hard not to be terribly proud, in the kindergarten, of his wonderful uncle. None of the other children had such an uncle. One little girl, indeed, put forward claims for a father in India, who had killed a cobra: but even he, as she was forced to admit, did not allow a monkey to tickle his head. The legend made so great an impression that, when Uncle Ben came again to fetch him home, he was greeted by a little crowd of silent, staring children. No whit daunted, he addressed them all boisterously, smiled at their Nannies, lifted his cap to their mothers, laid siege to the heart of poor Miss Simpson with a brace of rolling compliments—there was something entirely irresistible in his voice, and the twinkle of his eye: and led off Dermot amidst an admiring silence, every eye following his broad back up the road.
Uncle Ben took him there the next morning too, and added to his feats by leaping up and snatching off a spray of flowers that was growing down a wall, for Dermot to give to Miss Simpson. There was something so utterly unlike his father, unlike England, about a big man jumping up and pulling down a spray of flowers off a wall, that Dermot never forgot it. Miss Simpson was not herself for twenty minutes after the presentation.
But soon, dreadfully soon, came the time for Uncle Ben to go. He left as cheerfully as he came, with shouts of laughter, and waving of the hand. Happy, lovely Uncle Ben: able to sail back to Ireland. The place seemed all dull and empty after he had gone.
Chapter XII
Since the months immediately following Eithne’s birth, Dermot had been quiet and law-abiding, and seldom got into trouble. Indeed, from all his Mutley Park House days, he could only remember two large transgressions, both harmless in intention. The first, and the more serious, concerned the plumber. There was a path running down beside the sloping lawn to the little gate which led to Oxford Avenue, and under this path the plumber was laying a pipe. When he and his assistants had excavated the path to their satisfaction, they went away for their midday meal, leaving the pipe, which was of small diameter, lying in a coil beside one of the garden trees. The coil was a most inviting, a most suggestive object. Dermot contemplated it. Then he went off to get his tool b
ox. He had not many tools, but they were enough for the purpose.
The coil was tied together in several places with thick, coarse twine. This was easy. He simply put the blade of the chisel against the twine, and hit the chisel with a mallet until the twine was cut through. Once all the twine was cut, he began to uncoil the pipe. The lead was surprisingly soft and pliable: he uncoiled several yards of pipe, before he stopped, panting, for a rest. The plumber, who bore the homely name of Boggis, had omitted to mark his piping with it. Dermot repaired this oversight, in several places, cutting the letters with bradawl, chisel, and mallet, and adding a pedantic full stop after each inscription. The principle, if not the occasion, would have delighted Grandpapa. Then, the fancy gaining on him, he fashioned the end of the pipe into the head of a boa-constrictor, whose eyes, like those of a plaice, occurred irregularly on the top of its head, and proceeded to wind it round the tree. This was arduous work, and it was perhaps as well that the plumber’s assistant should return and interrupt it at about the third coil.
The plumber’s assistant stood still in amazement. Dermot faced him shyly, conscious of having done him a good turn by uncoiling the pipe, but of having exceeded instructions a little in winding it round the tree. He expected thanks, with possibly a good-humoured admonition, a wag of the finger in mock reproof.
“I’ve been making a boa-constrictor,” he said, in a tone to which self-consciousness gave a superior sound. “Or an anaconda. I’m not quite sure.”
The plumber’s assistant’s sallow face went all dark.
“Aaaaaah—you—bliddy—little—toad——” he began: but Dermot did not stop to hear the rest. Hastily, and in great surprise, he sought another part of the garden. Here he walked up and down, composing lordly speeches, imagining himself a potentate—the Dermot of Celebes—sitting upon a throne in a high room, into which his trusty slaves dragged the plumber’s assistant, a grovelling captive, to sue for mercy at his feet. The Dermot of Celebes was a new creation. He had read of Celebes in his geography, and, being much taken with the name, constituted himself its absolute ruler. To-day’s was the first practical use of the new dignity.
When he went in for his tea, avoiding with haughty care the south end of the garden, he saw that the pipe had been laid. Mr. Boggis and two assistants were stamping and patting down the earth by the side of the path. He was glad of this, despite his lofty mood, and decided not to mention the incident to anyone: since it was possible, just possible, that other adults might take the same attitude as the plumber’s assistant. In any case, it was usually unwise to repeat incidents in which the lower orders had a share. He had had an instance of that only a couple of Sundays ago. There were two visitors, and, doing his best to make interesting conversation, he had narrated the strange behaviour of the street boys in the waste land, during repairs to the fence. They had climbed a tree which enabled them to overlook the garden, and had engaged him in conversation.
“They would insist,” he told the visitors, laughing at the memory of such stupidity, “they would insist that my surname was * * * *.”
Instructed by this incident, therefore, he kept his own counsel.
But, a few days later, something happened which brought back disturbing memories.
“I can’t think,” said his father to his mother, “why that path is getting in such a swamp. We’ve hardly had any rain. It wasn’t like it all the winter.”
“Swamp, darling?” said his mother vaguely, recalled from abstraction.
“Swamp,” he repeated sharply. “It’s my belief old Boggis has made a mess of it again. If it turns out so, this is the last time I’ll employ him.”
That was all: but it was enough to fill Dermot with sick uneasiness. He remembered his carving: he remembered his full stops: and, for the first time, he faced the idea that he might have pierced the pipe. Any little quiver of anxiety he had felt on the afternoon itself had been lulled to rest once the pipe was safely underground. Out of sight, out of mind: only, unfortunately, the pipe would not play up to this comforting maxim. The starkness with which his fear now confronted him showed that it had not been buried very deep. Indeed, with Dermot, fear was never buried deep. For all the look of confidence which misled grown-ups about him, his soul was riddled and undermined with fears. Certain things did not frighten him, because he knew very well that they would not do him any harm. But the unknown was always a source of terror. Had he been old enough to formulate a philosophy of life, it would have seemed a narrow, precarious path, trodden on sufferance, in the midst of perils.
For two miserable days he crept about with his secret. No adult would have inflicted on him a tithe of the punishment he gave himself. Half an hour’s fear is an age to a child: and Dermot very soon showed the toll. He would not eat: he looked white and drawn, spoke hardly at all, and, when anyone spoke to him, began his reply unnecessarily loud, and let his voice die away before he had finished. Thinking he was upset inside, they gave him Gregory’s Powder, a bestial and nauseating medicine then in high favour. This did him no good—except in so far as strong emotions always upset him, and it may therefore have been needed. On the evening of the second day, his mother took him on her knee, and asked what was the matter. Her voice was very gentle, almost playful. It held a note so near to laughter that no trouble could be really very terrible. Hiding his face against her breast, he whispered his fear—begging her above all things not to tell his father. She looked a little serious at that. She could hardly promise, she explained softly, stroking his hair. But, very likely, what he had done had not pierced the pipe. It might all easily be a mistake of Mr. Boggis. He had done a job all wrong before.
“Oh, but don’t, don’t tell Daddy. He’ll be so angry. He’ll—he’ll shout at me.”
The voice trembled into tears.
“Darling, he won’t. He won’t, really. Daddy isn’t at all a cross sort of man.”
“Oh, but I’ve heard him, when he is cross——”
“Never fear, darling. He’ll see perfectly well that you didn’t mean to do it.”
“B-but, you remember, Mummy, the time I broke the water jug. I didn’t mean to do that—and he was dreadfully cross.”
“But you had no business to be playing with that, had you, little son? You see——”
“He’ll say I had no b-b-business to be playing with this.”
“That happened straight in front of him, and made him start. And you had been rather tiresome, fidgeting about, darling. This is different. He’ll have time to think about this.”
“Oh, darling Mummy, don’t, don’t, don’t tell him.”
“Well,” she temporised, looking down at him in some concern, “I won’t unless it becomes absolutely necessary, darling. More than that I can’t promise, even to you. But I do promise, whatever happens, it will be all right.”
Luckily the ordeal was not prolonged much further. When Dermot’s father came home that same evening, the swamp had grown alarmingly, and water was trickling on the surface of the path. Accordingly, on the next morning an aggrieved Mr. Boggis arrived, surveyed the swamp, and went off discomfited, to return after lunch with his two assistants. The water made its first appearance two thirds of the way up the slope: therefore, being Devonians, they began their excavations at the bottom. Thus it was not till Dermot’s father had returned from the office, and was going the round of his greenhouse, that Mr. Boggis appeared dramatically in the doorway.
“I’ve found the cause of the trouble, Mr. Gray,” he announced, in deep and solemn tones.
“Oh—that’s good. What is it?”
“YOUR SON.”
Mr. Boggis held up eighteen inches of lead piping, which he had been concealing behind his back.
“YOUR SON, Mr. Gray, sir. That’s what it is. That’s the cause. YOUR SON. A-writin’ of my name on the pipe with a sharp pointed objeck. Pokin’ ’oles.”
He thrust the evidence into Mr. Gray’s hand.
“You see for yourself, sir, what ’avoc’e done.”
“I do indeed.” Dermot’s father took the disclosure very well. “I can’t say how sorry I am, Mr. Boggis, that you should have been put to all this trouble.”
“No trouble, sir,” replied Mr. Boggis gloomily. “No trouble.”
The Garden Page 9
