Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie (17 page)

‘I think you’re an odious child,’ said Paul, ‘and I’ve a very good mind to tell your mother about you.’

‘That would rather take the gilt off your heroic action, though, wouldn’t it, old boy?’ said Bobby comfortably.

The local police, as Bobby’s friend had truly predicted, were unable to make up their minds as to whether the machine was or was not an infernal one. Until this pretty point should be settled Captain Chadlington was allotted two human bulldogs who were instructed by Scotland Yard that they must guard his life with their own. A camp bed was immediately made up for one of these trusty fellows in the passage, across the captain’s bedroom door, and the other was left to prowl about the house and garden all night, armed to the teeth.

‘Darling,’ said the Duchess to Bobby, as they went upstairs to bed after this exhausting day, ‘have you seen the lovely man who’s sleeping just outside my room? I don’t know what your mother expects to happen, but one is only made of flesh and blood after all.’

‘Well, for goodness sake, try to remember that you’re a duchess again now,’ said Bobby, kissing his aunt good night.

The two children of Captain and Lady Brenda Chadlington took a tremendous fancy to Paul, and he, although in the first place he had been completely put off by the fact that their names were Christopher Robin and Wendy, decided after a day or two that he would overlook this piece of affectation, which was, after all, not their own fault. He addressed them as George and Mabel (his lips refusing to utter their real names) and became very much attached to them.

‘You see, it’s not as though the poor things had chosen those names themselves,’ he said to Bobby, ‘and I should like to do what little I can to help them towards some form of self-respect. It is really tragic to see children surrounded by such an atmosphere of intellectual dishonesty. Poor George and Mabel.’

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Bobby, yawning. He was both bored and piqued, as Héloïse had gone off for the whole day with Squibby.

‘In every respect,’ went on Paul, ‘they are treated as congenital half-wits by their parents. It is really shocking. They tell me,’ he added disgustedly, ‘that their Sussex house is called “The Cottage in the Wood”. Well, I mean to say! I always refer to it as The Cedars when mentioning it to them. “The Cottage in the Wood” indeed; it’s nearly as good as “Mulberrie Farm”. I don’t know what the English-speaking race is coming to.’

‘Oh, of course, Brenda is the most affected woman in the world, we all know that, but she seems to be bringing them up quite nicely, I must say. They aren’t at all spoilt or naughty.’

‘They may not be. All I know is that their poor little minds are simply drowning in a welter of falsehood and pretence.’

‘I s’pose you mean,’ said Bobby, lighting a cigarette, ‘that they are made to say their prayers and discouraged from seeing Brenda and Charlie naked in the bath. Personally, I’m rather old-fashioned about these things, too.’

‘They are treated insanely. Not only are their brains being warped by constant application to the most sterile and insidiously unmoral forms of child literature – Barrie, A. A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame, Kipling, and so on – but they are being sternly repressed in every way. Just at this age when they should be opening out to life, assimilating new experiences of every sort, learning to care for truth and beauty in every form, they are subjected to constant humiliations, constant thwarting and hindering. Each little instinct has to be fought back as soon as it appears. How can they be expected to develop? Look at what happened to poor George on Christmas Day!’

‘I didn’t then and I should simply hate to now,’ said Bobby, wondering when was the soonest that he could expect Héloïse back from her outing.

‘Poor child, what could be more natural though? It was obviously the first time in his stunted little life that he had had the chance to eat as much chocolate as he really wanted. That incident told a tale of wanton cruelty.’

‘Wanton greediness, I should call it. Dirty little pig.’

‘As for Mabel, it is tragic to see the way she is chivvied about from pillar to post all day. “Have you washed your hands, Wendy? Did you clean your teeth? Take off your outdoor shoes. Get on with your knitting. Why haven’t you brushed your hair? Put on your coat. Go for a walk.” And all this, I would have you observe, to a child of inherently contemplative nature, a philosopher, probably, in the making. How
can
she develop properly? Every time she sits down to commune within herself, to think out
some abstruse problem or to register some new experience, she is hounded off to perform dreary and perfunctory tasks. My heart bleeds for Mabel.’

‘Wendy’s the laziest little beast I know. She’d never do a thing if she were left to herself. It’s pure idleness with her.’

‘I entirely disagree with you, Bobby. That child has ideas and perceptions far beyond her age, and naturally they tire her out. She needs time and leisure in which to tabulate the impressions which she is always receiving from the outer world. Another thing very sad to see is the way her emotional life is threatened.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘The poor child has a most distinct father-fixation, haven’t you realized that? Very marked indeed.’

‘Oh, nonsense, Paul; what extraordinary ideas you do have.’

‘Nonsense, is it? My dear Bobby, just you notice the way she copies him in everything – she sits, walks, eats and talks exactly like him. Why, in another year or two she’ll be the living image of him, always a sign of morbid affection, you know.’

‘Really, you do surprise me. I suppose heredity could have nothing to do with it?’ said Bobby sarcastically.

‘Oh, no, nothing whatever. Nobody believes in hereditary influences nowadays. No, it’s all the result of this mad passion she has, subconsciously, of course, for her father. Most dangerous.’

‘Well,’ said Bobby, ‘I expect you know best. Anyhow, here comes one of the little cherubs, bless his tiny heart.’

‘Mr. Fisher,’ said Christopher Robin, putting his head round the schoolroom door. ‘Please will you come out with us? Mother says we must go up the drive and back before lunch.’

‘Must, must
, always that word
“must”
,’ sighed Paul. ‘So unwholesome, so stifling. Yes, I’d like to come out with you, George. Where’s Mabel, then?’

‘She’s just looking for still-borns in
The Times
,’ said Christopher Robin. ‘I’ll fetch her – oh, here she comes though.’
Wendy Chadlington kept a little red pocket-book in which she wrote down the numbers of still-born babies every day as announced in the Births column of
The Times
. This lugubrious hobby seemed to afford her the deepest satisfaction.

‘Any luck today?’ asked Christopher Robin casually.

‘Not today. One lot of triplets though. I keep a separate page for them, and there were two still-borns yesterday. One mustn’t expect too much, you know.’

‘Now George and Mabel,’ said Paul, ‘if you are quite ready let’s go, shall we? There isn’t much time, really, before lunch.’

Wendy looked at Christopher Robin and they both giggled. They were not, as yet, accustomed to their new names, and thought that Paul, though both amiable and entertaining, was undoubtedly a little mad.

Paul carefully replaced a volume of Lady Maria’s journal behind the radiator, a practice that had but little meaning since Lady Bobbin, for whose deception it had been invented, never came near the schoolroom by any chance.

‘What story are you going to tell us today?’ asked Wendy as they started out.

‘Please, Mr. Fisher, tell us a story about animals.’

‘A true story about animals, please, Mr. Fisher.’

Yesterday’s ‘story’, a homily on the life history of eels, had not really gone with much of a swing, and it was felt that a true story would be preferable to one which he had palpably invented himself.

‘Well, let me think,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t know many stories about animals. What kind of animal?’

‘Any kind.
Please
, Mr. Fisher. You told us a lovely one yesterday,’ said Christopher Robin encouragingly.

‘I really
don’t
know any,’ said Paul, at his wits’ end. ‘Unless you’d like to hear one that I read in
Country Life
the other day. That was supposed to be true, I believe.’

‘What’s
Country Life
?’

‘It’s a paper your Aunt Gloria takes in.’

‘I
know,’ said Wendy in tones of superiority, and added in a stage whisper: ‘Christopher Robin can’t read, you know, so of course papers aren’t very interesting to him.’

‘Pig,’ said Christopher Robin. ‘I
can
read. Anyway,
you
– ’

Paul had been treated to arguments of this kind before, and hastily said: ‘I’ll tell you the story then, if you’ll be quiet. A man was walking across a farm-yard – ’

‘A farmer?’ asked Wendy, ‘or a labourer?’

‘If you interrupt I shan’t go on. The man who wrote this story to
Country Life –
I don’t know who he may have been – was walking across a farm-yard when he saw two rats running along in front of him. He threw a stick which he had in his hand at the first rat and killed it dead. To his great surprise the second rat, instead of running away, stood quite still as though it were waiting for something. The man thought this was so odd that he went over to look at it, and when he got quite near he saw that it was stone blind and had a straw in its mouth. The rat he had killed had been leading it along by the straw, you see, and the poor blind one thought it had stopped to have a drink or something, I suppose, and was just patiently waiting there for it to go on.’

‘Well?’ said Wendy after a pause.

‘That’s the end of the story.’

‘But what did the man do with the blind rat?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say in
Country Life
.

‘I should have kept it for a pet,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘and led it about on a straw.’

‘I should
love
a dear little blind rat,’ said Wendy, and added in a contemplative voice: ‘I sometimes wish I were blind you know, so that I needn’t see my tooth water after I’ve spat it.’

‘I know what,’ said Christopher Robin, ‘let’s pretend you’re a blind rat, Wendy. Shut your eyes, you see, and put this straw in
your mouth, and I’ll put the other end of it in mine, and I’ll lead you along by it.’

That evening Lady Brenda said to Paul: ‘I think it is so kind of you to take my wee things out for walks (I’m afraid they
must
bore you rather, don’t they?) but – please don’t mind me saying this – don’t you think that game you taught them with the straw is perhaps just the least little bit unhygienic? Of course if the straw could be sterilized I wouldn’t mind, but you see one can’t be certain where it came from, and I am so frightened always of T.B. So I’ve strictly forbidden them to play it any more, I hope you won’t be angry; it’s too sweet of you to bother with them,’ and with a vague smile she drifted away.

*

Héloïse Potts took Squibby Almanack for a ride. She did this mainly in order to annoy Bobby, because she knew that she would be fearfully bored by Squibby before the day was over. They went, in the duchess’s black Rolls-Royce, to visit Bunch Tarradale, whose ancestral home, Cracklesford Castle, was some thirty miles away, in Warwickshire.

Bunch was more than pleased to see them, and quickly led off Squibby to the downstairs lavatory so that they could have a good gossip.

‘Have you heard from Biggy?’ said Bunch, with more than a hint of malice in his voice. ‘He’s in love again.’

‘Not again! Who is it this time?’

‘A girl called Susan Alveston. However, she’s refused him, which is all to the good. Very ugly and stupid I hear she is, and only sixteen.’

‘Biggy always likes them young though, doesn’t he? How d’you know she’s ugly and stupid?’

‘He said so in his letter. He said “You might not call her strictly beautiful, but she has a most fascinating and expressive little face”. That means she must be ugly, doesn’t it, and all girls of
sixteen are stupid. All the ones I’ve met are, anyhow. Besides, she must be, to refuse Biggy.’

‘You seem to think that girls only have one idea in their heads, and that is to marry a lord as soon as they can.’

‘Well, isn’t that true?’

‘
I
have my ideals,’ said Squibby.

‘And have you heard from Maydew?’ continued Bunch. ‘I had a picture post-card saying everything had turned out very satisfactorily.’

‘So did I. Balham is evidently a success. What a sensible man Maydew is, to be sure, so untrammelled by feeling. It must be delightful to have a nature of that sort.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Anyhow, I am very glad about poor old Biggy, only I do feel that he should be more careful. One of these days he will be accepted, and how he would resent that.’

‘So should we all. Do you think that perhaps my mother has now been subjected to the maddening prattle of your first cousin for long enough? Shall we relieve her?’

‘Just a minute. I knew there was something else I wanted to ask you. What is all this nonsense about a quintet society?’

‘Ah! Biggy has written to you about that, too, has he? Mind you, I think it’s quite a good idea in some ways, only I’m afraid it’s bound to be a failure if Biggy has anything to do with it. Still, I suppose one will have to join?’

‘I suppose so. One must support the poor old boy, though, frankly, it seems rather a waste of his time and our money. It’s so like Biggy, isn’t it? He always starts these wildly unpractical schemes. As though there were not enough good concerts as it is, besides, I hate listening to music in drawing-rooms. One’s always catching people’s eyes.’

‘He tells me we shall be able to take off our boots.’

‘I always do in any case.’

‘All the same, I daresay there is something to be said for it, you know,’ muttered Squibby grudgingly as they went upstairs.
Fond as they were of each other, these friends had a sort of underlying bitterness in their characters which made it impossible for them not to indulge sometimes in a little harmless venom; like certain brothers and sisters, they always pretended to be sceptical of any venture embarked upon by others.