Mansfield with Monsters (10 page)

“Oh…” Cleo began to cry for the first time in many long, lonely years. She ran out of the shop into the taxi. The driver, looking pale and limp, shuffled off the seat and shut the door again. “Where to?” he asked dully.

“Princes',” she sobbed. And all the way there she saw nothing but a tiny wax doll with a feather of gold hair, lying meek, its tiny hands and feet crossed. And then just before she came to Princes' she saw a flower-shop full of white flowers. Oh, what a perfect thought. Wouldn't that stop this terrible gnawing at her chest, the pain that felt worse yet than the hunger? Lilies-of-the-valley, and white pansies, double white violets and white velvet ribbon… From an unknown friend… From one who understands… For a Little Girl… From one who is sorry…

She tapped against the window, but the driver did not hear; and, anyway, they were at Princes' already.

The Daughters of the Lizard Colonel

I

The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives. Even when they went to bed it was only their bodies that lay down and rested; their minds went on, thinking things out, talking things over, wondering, deciding, trying to remember where…

Constantia lay like a statue, her hands by her sides, her feet just overlapping each other, the sheet up to her chin. The effort of remaining in human form was all too much for her; she let her claws and scales and forked tongue unfurl. She felt a twinge of guilt, but father was gone now. Besides, Josephine had changed immediately after dinner. She stared at the ceiling.

“Do you think Father would mind if we gave his top-hat to the porter?”

“The porter?” snapped Josephine. “Why ever the porter? What a very extraordinary idea!”

“Because,” said Constantia slowly, “he must often have to go to funerals. And I noticed at—at the cemetery that he only had a bowler.” She paused. “I thought then how very much he'd appreciate a top-hat. We ought to give him a present, too. He was always very nice to Father.”

“But,” cried Josephine, flouncing on her pillow and staring across the dark at Constantia, “Father's head!” As he had aged, their father had lost the ability to grow human skin on the top of his head. His skin-baldness was a cause of great consternation, and he had affected to wear a hat at all times, his reptile scales constantly covered. And suddenly, for one awful moment, she nearly giggled. Not, of course, that she felt in the least like giggling. It must have been habit. Years ago, when they had stayed awake at night talking, their beds had simply heaved. And now the porter's head, disappearing, popped out, like a candle, under Father's hat… The giggle mounted, mounted; she clenched her hands, claws biting into the scales of her palms; she fought it down; she frowned fiercely at the dark and said “Remember” terribly sternly.

“We can decide to-morrow,” she said.

Constantia had noticed nothing; she sighed.

“Do you think we ought to have our dressing-gowns dyed as well?”

“Black?” almost shrieked Josephine.

“Well, what else?” said Constantia. “I was thinking—it doesn't seem quite sincere, in a way, to wear black out of doors and when we're fully dressed, and then when we're at home—”

“But nobody sees us,” said Josephine. “And we are so often in our human forms during the day. Our dressing gowns are quite the only clothes we get to wear in our true skin.” She gave the bedclothes such a twitch that her toe-claws became uncovered, and she had to creep up the pillows to get them well under again.

“Kate sees us,” said Constantia.

Josephine thought of her dark red slippers, which matched her dressing-gown and her fiery scales, and of Constantia's favourite indefinite green ones that went with hers. Black! Two black dressing-gowns and two pairs of black woolly slippers, creeping off to the bath-room like black cats.

“I don't think it's absolutely necessary,” said she.

Silence. Then Constantia said, “We shall have to post the papers with the notice in them to-morrow to catch the Ceylon mail… How many letters have we had up till now?”

“Twenty-three.”

Josephine had replied to them all, and twenty-three times when she came to “We miss our dear father so much” she had broken down and had to use her handkerchief, and on some of them even to soak up a very light-blue tear with an edge of blotting-paper. Strange! She couldn't have put it on—but twenty-three times. Even now, though, when she said over to herself sadly “We miss our dear father so much,” she could have cried if she'd wanted to.

“Have you got enough stamps?” came from Constantia.

“Oh, how can I tell?” said Josephine crossly. “What's the good of asking me that now?”

“I was just wondering,” said Constantia mildly.

Silence again. There came a little rustle, a scurry, a hop.

“A mouse,” said Constantia.

“It can't be a mouse because there aren't any crumbs,” said Josephine.

“But it doesn't know there aren't,” said Constantia.

A spasm of hunger squeezed her stomach. Delicious little thing! She wished she'd left a tiny piece of biscuit on the dressing-table. It was tantalising to think of it so close yet without bait. What would it do?

“I can't think how they manage to live at all,” she said slowly.

“Who?” demanded Josephine.

And Constantia said more loudly than she meant to, “Mice.”

Josephine was furious. “Oh, what nonsense, Con!” she said. “What have mice got to do with it? You're asleep.”

“I don't think I am,” said Constantia. She shut her eyes to make sure. She was.

Josephine arched her spine, pulled up her knees, folded her arms so that her claws came under her ears, and pressed her cheek hard against the pillow. Her tongue slipped out and tasted the night air, flicked over her eyes, then fell still.

II

Another thing which complicated matters was they had Nurse Andrews staying on with them that week. It was their own fault; they had asked her. It was Josephine's idea. On the morning—well, on the last morning, when the doctor had gone, Josephine had said to Constantia, “Don't you think it would be rather nice if we asked Nurse Andrews to stay on for a week as our guest? Fattened her up?”

“Should we? Wouldn't Father…” But of course he wouldn't protest. Never again. “Very nice,” said Constantia.

“I thought,” went on Josephine quickly, “I should just say this afternoon, after I've paid her, ‘My sister and I would be very pleased, after all you've done for us, Nurse Andrews, if you would stay on for a week as our guest.' I'd have to put that in about being our guest so that we have time to arrange letters—”

“Put her family off the scent,” replied Constantia.

“Leave a trail, just not to one's own nest,” said Josephine sagely.

Nurse Andrews would be the first person they'd eaten in the house. They were quite giddy at the thought.

Nurse Andrews had, of course, jumped at the idea of staying on. It meant they had to have regular sit-down meals at the proper times, and keep their skin on all day, whereas if they'd been alone they could just have asked Kate if she wouldn't have minded bringing them a tray wherever they were. She was well accustomed to their odd lineage. And meal-times now that the strain was over were rather a trial.

Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter. Really they couldn't help feeling that about butter, at least, she took advantage of their kindness. And she had that maddening habit of asking for just an inch more of bread to finish what she had on her plate, and then, at the last mouthful, absent-mindedly—of course it wasn't absent-mindedly—taking another helping. If they hadn't been planning to eat her it would have quite upset them. As it was, all that butter hinted at how delicious the old bird would be when she was ripe. Josephine grew voracious when this happened, and she fastened her small, bead-like eyes on the tablecloth as if she saw a minute strange insect creeping through the web of it. But Constantia's long, pale face lengthened and set, and she gazed away—away—far over the desert, to where that line of camels unwound like a thread of wool…

“When I was with Lady Tukes,” said Nurse Andrews, “she had such a dainty little contrayvance for the buttah. It was a silvah Cupid balanced on the—on the bordah of a glass dish, holding a tayny fork. And when you wanted some buttah you simply pressed his foot and he bent down and speared you a piece. It was quite a gayme.”

Josephine could hardly bear that. But “I think those things are very extravagant” was all she said. The tip of her tongue split as she spoke, and she raised a hand to her mouth to cover it.

“But whey?” asked Nurse Andrews, beaming through her eyeglasses. “No one, surely, would take more buttah than one wanted—would one?”

“Ring, Con,” cried Josephine. She couldn't trust herself to reply.

And proud young Kate, the enchanted princess, came in to see what the old lizards wanted now. She snatched away their plates of mock something or other and slapped down a white, terrified blancmange.

“Jam, please, Kate,” said Josephine kindly.

Kate knelt and burst open the sideboard, lifted the lid of the jam-pot, saw it was empty, put it on the table, and stalked off.

“I'm afraid,” said Nurse Andrews a moment later, “there isn't any.”

“Oh, what a bother!” said Josephine. She bit her lip. “What had we better do?”

Constantia looked dubious. “We can't disturb Kate again,” she said softly. She could be trusted to keep their secret only so far.

Nurse Andrews waited, smiling at them both. Her eyes wandered, spying at everything behind her eyeglasses. Constantia in despair went back to her camels. Josephine frowned heavily—concentrated. If it hadn't been for this idiotic woman she and Con would, of course, have eaten a freshly killed rat or cat. She considered clamouring over the table and tearing the woman's throat out then and there, but of course it would make such a mess and Kate might be upset. The nurse would have to be killed in private, on the tiled floor of the bath-room, perhaps. Suddenly an idea came.

“I know,” she said. “Marmalade. There's some marmalade in the sideboard. Get it, Con.”

“I hope,” laughed Nurse Andrews—and her laugh was like a spoon tinkling against a medicine-glass—“I hope it's not very bittah marmalayde.”

III

But, after all, it was not long now, and then she'd be gone for good. And there was no getting over the fact that she had been very kind to Father. She had nursed him day and night at the end, and seemed to have suspected nothing. Indeed, both Constantia and Josephine felt privately she had rather overdone the not leaving him at the very last. For when they had gone in to say good-bye Nurse Andrews had sat beside his bed the whole time, holding his wrist and pretending to look at her watch. It couldn't have been necessary. It was so tactless, too. Supposing Father had wanted to shed his human skin at the last, to say something—something private to them. Not that he had. Oh, far from it! He hadn't changed in decades, not all over. His scales had started to show here and there and his tongue was nigh always forked, but he wore his human skin day and night and would brook no suggestion that he revert. He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even looked at them when they came in. Then, as they were standing there, wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh, what a difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of him, if it had been a true reptile eye at the end! But no—one human eye only. It glared at them a moment and then… went out.

IV

It had made it very awkward for them when Mr Farolles, of St John's, called the same afternoon. They had meant to eat the nurse immediately, but he had seen her there, had forced caution upon them.

“The end was quite peaceful, I trust?” were the first words he said as he glided towards them through the dark drawing-room.

“Quite,” said Josephine faintly. They both hung their heads. Both of them felt certain that eye wasn't at all a peaceful eye.

“Won't you sit down?” said Josephine.

“Thank you, Miss Pinner,” said Mr Farolles gratefully. He folded his coat-tails and began to lower himself into Father's arm-chair, but just as he touched it he almost sprang up and slid into the next chair instead.

He coughed. Josephine clasped her hands; Constantia looked vague.

“I want you to feel, Miss Pinner,” said Mr Farolles, “and you, Miss Constantia, that I'm trying to be helpful. I want to be helpful to you both, if you will let me. These are the times,” said Mr Farolles, very simply and earnestly, “when God means us to be helpful to one another.”

“Thank you very much, Mr Farolles,” said Josephine and Constantia.

“Not at all,” said Mr Farolles gently. He drew his kid gloves through his fingers and leant forward. “And if either of you would like a little Communion, either or both of you, here and now, you have only to tell me. A little Communion is often very help—a great comfort,” he added tenderly.

But the idea of a little Communion terrified them. What! In the drawing-room by themselves—with no—no altar or anything! The piano would be much too high, thought Constantia, and Mr Farolles could not possibly lean over it with the chalice. And Kate would be sure to come bursting in and interrupt them, thought Josephine. And supposing the rug were displaced, and their hidden shrine to the serpent god were uncovered. Would they kill Mr Farolles immediately, or would they have to feign ignorance? Declare heretical defiance? And the mess, and the danger that he had been seen arriving? It was unthinkable.

“Perhaps you will send round a note by your good Kate if you would care for it later,” said Mr Farolles.

“Oh yes, thank you very much!” they both said.

Mr Farolles got up and took his black straw hat from the round table.

“And about the funeral,” he said softly. “I may arrange that—as your dear father's old friend and yours, Miss Pinner—and Miss Constantia?”

Josephine and Constantia got up too.

“I should like it to be quite simple,” said Josephine firmly, “and not too expensive. At the same time, I should like—”

“A good one that will last,” thought dreamy Constantia, as if Josephine were buying a night-gown. But, of course, Josephine didn't say that. “One suitable to our father's position.” She was very nervous.

“I'll run round to our good friend Mr Knight,” said Mr Farolles soothingly. “I will ask him to come and see you. I am sure you will find him very helpful indeed.”

V

Well, at any rate, all that part of it was over, though neither of them could possibly believe that Father was never coming back. Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would Father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. “Buried. You two girls had me buried!” She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn't be expected to understand that Father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?