National Velvet (26 page)

    
“Did they leave him there?”

    
“Left him there all night with all that grass an' all of it salt an' all that water an' all of it salt, and him used to a good stable and lots of men. He musta bin scared stiff. He was a great big ugly horse, seventeen hands high, an' I bet he was a brave horse.”

    
“Did he die?” said Donald, his eyes blazing.

    
“No, he didn't die.”

    
“Yes, he did. I KNOW he did.”

    
“You can't know because he didn't. He was fetched by a steamer or something . . .”

    
“He DIED,” said Donald with a blazing, inner look.

    
“He didn't, he didn't. He won the National.”

    
“He died on that island,” said Donald like a fanatic. “I was there.”

    
“You weren't. What a story. You weren't born.”

    
“I was born, I was born . . .”

    
“You were a star,” said Edwina annoyingly.

    
“I wasn' a star. I was born an' I was there an' that horse died. He died on that salty place an' I saw 'im die and he lay down an' his eyes . . .”

    
“Hysterics,” said Mrs. Brown calmly and whisked him up. “He's never any good when he's missed his hour.” Donald went to bed weeping and was asleep in ten minutes.

    
“You didn't wash him, mother!” said Mally, scandalized, on her mother's return.

    
“Wants sleep, not washin',” said Mrs. Brown. “Now, Velvet!”

    
“Just after Donald? Not NOW?”

    
“This minute.”

    
“I must put my shell-box away.”

    
“Put it away.”

    
“I'll put the race-horses in at the bottom.”

    
In went Manifesto, Tipperary Tim, Sergeant Murphy, Ally Sloper, Why Not, and Shannon Lass,–five righthanders and one left. Then the Shetland, then the four ponies, and on the very top of all the prize among her findings (another theft from the Free Library book) the little grey stallion, the Lamb (by Zouave–dam by Arthur).

    
“There they are,” she said with a sigh, and shut the lid.

    
“Cheer up, Velvet,” said Mr. Brown.

    
“Feels mixed up,” said Mrs. Brown. “Get on, Velvet, don't hang about.”

    
Slowly Velvet climbed the wooden stairs to bed. Her head seemed hardly to have touched the pillow when mother, dressed in her pink dressing gown, shook her in her bed. Dizzy, she rose, and, shivering, dressed, then swallowed the hot cocoa, and holding a piece of cold sausage in her fingers climbed into the lobby of the horse-box which had arrived in the dark before dawn. Her suitcase was stuffed in after her, Mi arrived, carrying another through the dark yard, a spaniel yelped from Miss Ada's tool shed, and the box was off, The Piebald already housed by Mi twenty minutes earlier.

    
“We're off, we're off!” whispered Velvet.

    
“Tscht!” said Mi. “You stow it till it gets light,” and he settled himself on the straw to finish his night's sleep.

    
Endless journey in the horse-box till the South gave way to the North, bit by bit, and the day was broken by fresh packets of sandwiches.

    
“Don't we stop
anywhere
, Mi?” said Velvet as the hours crawled on.

    
But Mi was full of thought. There was a frown on his forehead and an edge to his tongue, and now and again he glanced at his large suitcase.

    
The horse-box driver, hired from Worthing, was a stranger, a glum fellow who seemed to have no interest in horses, the Grand National, the countryside, or the passengers he carried. His eye was glazed on the road ahead of him, and his mind was mesmerised by hours on the clock and miles to be covered, and the relation of these to each other.

    
Five miles outside Aintree they paused and broke the journey for a pot of tea. Mi glanced at Velvet and rose.

    
“You off?” said the driver, half asleep over his cup.

    
“Girl got an aunt here,” said Mi gruffly. “Takin' her to her aunt.”

    
The driver slipped his legs out and lay back deeply in his chair. His eyes closed.

    
It took Mi twenty minutes to get Velvet's hair chopped perfunctorily in the lobby of the horse-box. It was the back by the nape of the neck that took the time. He bent down and crushed the sweepings in among the straw with the horse.

    
“Whiter'n straw,” he muttered. “Looks like stubble.”

    
“Won't he come any minute?” said Velvet anxiously.

    
“Any minute,” said Mi. “Can't be helped. Got no
where else to do it. Pull up them trousers and give me yer skirt.” The aged little skirt, the width of a school-boy's pants, was stuffed into the suitcase.

    
“Where'd you get 'em all?”

    
“Don't talk. Hurry. Slip your arm in the braces, they're all ready.”

    
A hard white collar, slightly soiled, and a spotted tie hung on a nail.

    
“Can you manage 'em?”

    
“Yes, I expect. Is there a stud?”

    
Mi took his own from his neck, and tied his handkerchief in its place.

    
“You manage 'em an' I'll go an' talk to him if he wakes.”

    
“What'll I do when I'm finished?”

    
“Slope round the back an' wait about. When we've gone get some tea or ginger an' sit in there. Here's a shilling. I'll be back in a couple of hours, near. Then we'll take the tram into Liverpool an' go an' have a look at the Adelphi. Look sharp now.”

    
The little man who emerged from the back of the horse-van was very much thrown together. As he walked he seemed to settle down; he turned up his coat collar to hide the badly-tied tie, and jammed his greasy hat more confidently over his brow.

    
Mi and the driver emerged, the engine started, the horse-box moved away.

    
The skies, which had held off, now lowered and broke. Rain fell and the little man stirred his cold
tea endlessly, fencing the occasional questions from the landlady.

    
The landlady had no sort of doubt.

    
“It's a girl,” she said to her husband in the kitchen.

    
“No business of ours,” said her husband.

    
“None,” she agreed.

    
The inn was empty, the rain thudded, the white-faced clock tocked on, no customer came in. When Mi pushed the door open and dropped down upon the mat Velvet woke with a jerk from a cold half-sleep.

    
They started up the road, Mi carrying the heavy suitcase, Velvet the small papier-mâché one she had brought. The trams began half a mile away, but by the time they reached them rain was entering their collars and wallowing in their shoes.

    
Climbing on to the hard seats they jolted off, huddling close together for warmth, the little sturdy man with the red hair and the lad with the greasy Homburg hat.

    
“What's the Adelphi?” said the lad, low.

    
“Toff's place,” said the other. “Maybe it's too toff. I've forgot. There's the Stork too. We'll walk round and see.”

    
“Be wet. Walking round.”

    
“Couldn't be wetter.”

    
“Funny, that chap driving off with my hair.”

    
“Turn your head round this way and let's look.” Mi inspected the nape of the neck under the Homburg hat. “I'll have to trim it better,” he said, “s'choppy.”

D
RENCHED
with rain they stood at the portals of the Adelphi. Mi laid his hand on the little man's shoulder. “Mind the porter!” he said in a whisper. “Stand back here behind the concrete. I gone an' forgot. This place is too swell.”

    
“Feet are sopped,” said the little man,

    
“This rain's like ink. It's a bad start off. Stop a minute . . .”

    
“Ah,” said the little man and looked hungrily through the revolving doors. “Coo lummy,” he whispered, “aren't they gay in there! It's all looking-glass!”

    
They were on the arrival terrace of the Adelphi above the dripping Square, rustling with the noise of falling rain and overflowing pipes. The trams nosed by, the wet lamps flashed, “Ovaltine” went in and out, the grey buildings were polished with water.

    
“See the toffs go in,” said Mi as the taxis drew up. “Gawd, ther's Lord Derby!”

    
“Where?”

    
“Crossing the hall, see? Why . . . he's got Tommy Weston with him.”

    
“The big man?”

    
“No, his Lordship's the big one. Let's go to the Stork.”

    
They trudged away in the rain, Mi carrying the bigger suitcase, which seemed to be melting at one corner.

    
“S'chap wantsa room,” said Mi. “He's a foreign. Name Tasky. I'm not looking for one for myself. I'm lodged.”

    
The Stork took them in.

    
Velvet stared at him.

    
They went up the stairs to a small room at the back.

    
“How'd you mean you're lodged?”

    
“Tsch! Talk quiet.”

    
They reached number seven, went in, and Mi shut the door. It was a bare room with a small bed and a sixty-volt electric light.

    
“I don' need a room. See? I got to do some nosing round. There's chaps I'll see an' chaps I'll listen to. I might go round to th' Adelphi.”

    
“The Adelphi!”

    
“Why not? Place is full o' chaps like me. Not on the top level. Round the pantries. You can see things if you cross the hall purposeful from time to time. Nobody asks. There's the telephone lobbies. Head lads doing a bit of telephoning. Michael Beary'll be chatting about I daresay.”

    
“Who's he?”

    
“Dear God, Velvet!”

    
“Eh . . . I'll never get my feet warm,” said Velvet, sighing.

    
“Get undressed an' I'll poke round an' get you a hot bottle.”

    
“But . . . Me being a lad . . .”

    
“Yepp. Beat your feet with a brush, then. I'll do it.”

    
“Rub 'em.”

    
“Beat's better. Where's the brush?”

    
Velvet knelt down and undid her suitcase. “I didn't bring a brush,” she said, desisting suddenly. “I thought my hair, now it's off . . .”

    
“I done it not so bad,” said Mi with pride. “It's white skin where the hair used to hang. I'll snip it cleaner in the morning.”

    
“Can't we get something? It's the one place that shows when I've got that cap on. How much money you got left?”

    
“Precious little,” said Mi. “Enough fer your room an' gettin' out there. You get into bed an' I'll come back in ten minutes.”

    
Velvet lay shivering in bed, too tired to turn out the devouring light which blanched her under its beams. The bones of her forehead were sore when she pressed her head in her hands.

    
Mi returned. He carried a tiny glass full of a brilliant green liquid, placed it carefully on the mantelpiece and took out from under his coat a gin bottle which he had filled with boiling water.

    
“There goes one an' six,” he said. “We gotta be careful.”