National Velvet (8 page)

    
“Oh, I meant to tell you!” said Edwina. “They're going to raffle it to-morrow . . .”

    
“We know” said Mally. “Mi said so. And he's given us five shillings to have a ticket each. Even Donald.”

    
“
Lent
us,” said Velvet.

    
“I meant lent us. Where do we get the tickets?”

    
“They've got books at the Post Office. Books of tickets.”

    
“Let's go down and choose early ones.”

    
Edwina stuffed her skirt back in the drawer. The stockings lay in tight black balls on the bed.

    
“Come on, Meredith . . .”

    
“You go. I'll come in a minute.”

    
Edwina, Mally and Velvet clattered down the stairs and left Meredith stooping beside a cage.

    
Velvet put her head back in at the door.

    
“Shall I get yours or will you get your own?”

    
Meredith answered without looking round. “The female's ill.”

    
“Which is it?” said Velvet, coming nearer.

    
“Africa,” said Meredith in a low voice.

    
Africa had been a male until she had been discovered to be a female. Now she lay in the palm of Meredith's hand, cloaking her eye with a little sagging hood.

    
“Is it the heat?” said Velvet, awed.

    
“I don't know,” said Merry. “Get me the brandy. It's on the bottom shelf in the sideboard. In father's flask.”

    
While Velvet went for the brandy Meredith reached for her fountain-pen-filler, her left hand groping in a drawer, her eyes steady on the faint yellow bird.

    
“Draw the blind,” she said to Velvet who had returned. Velvet drew the blind behind the roaring cages and all song dropped like a flag when the wind has failed. There was a sickroom silence and anxiety.

    
“How much?” asked Velvet.

    
“One drop.”

    
But Africa died. She died in the palm of Merry's hand without a sound or a sigh or a movement. She seemed to miss a little breath and go smaller, and Velvet, startled, glanced round, as though a whiff of life had drifted out of Africa.

    
“I can't hold her now she's dead,” said Merry, her teeth chattering. “Take her off my hand.”

    
“Tip her off,” said Velvet, wincing too.

    
“Go on. Take her! I'll scream.”

    
Velvet took her and laid her with distaste on the bed-table by Merry's bed.

    
“Horrible,” said Merry. “It's a corpse. Poor little Africa. She's gone away.”

    
“I truthfully,” said Velvet in a low voice, “thought I saw her go.”

    
“How?”

    
“When she went small. Just something.”

    
“What?”

    
“Air.”

    
“That was her spirit,” said Merry suddenly, looking at her intently. Velvet and Meredith stared at Africa.

    
“I should like her just not to be here,” said Merry savagely. “I should like her to be all buried and finished.”

    
“Perhaps Mi will.”

    
“No, he won't. He'll say, ‘Bury your own bird.' ”

    
“Mother will,” said Velvet.

    
“Will she?”

    
“Yes, come on. Leave it there.” Velvet flipped up the blind again and all the canaries cantered straight into open song. “Go on down to the Post Office an' I'll be down in a second.”

    
“Who's got the shilling?”

    
“Mally has,” said Velvet. “They'll be waiting for you. Don't get my ticket for me!”

    
“No—” Merry ran down the street.

    
“Mother,” said Velvet, opening the scullery door. “Africa's died.”

    
Mrs. Brown turned. “Merry know?”

    
“Yes, she died in her hand. Just now.”

    
“Where's Merry?”

    
“Gone down to the Post Office. But she can't touch Africa. She hates her dead. Could you bury her, do you think? She's on the table by Merry's bed.”

    
“I'll see to her,” said Mrs. Brown. “Bring her down.”

    
“I can't touch her either,” said Velvet. “She's . . .”

    
Mrs. Brown looked at her.

    
“You know when a thing's dead . . .” said Velvet uselessly. Then after a pause she went slowly upstairs and brought down the dead bird in her hand. Mrs. Brown reached up to a shelf for a little cardboard box. She put Africa inside and shut the lid. Velvet raced down to the Post Office.

    
In the sultry midday, with the Hullocks steaming above them, a little group of parcel-posters and stamp-buyers was jesting over the book-tickets. Edwina and her sisters stood in the shadow, their eyes grave and full of choosing. They were weighing the flashing, unequal importance of numbers.

    
The blacksmith was having his joke.

    
“Stand up, gentlemen,” he shouted, “the horse is yours! Shilling a go for a mad piebald gelding. Or is it a stallion, Mr. Croom? Not clean gelded, eh? Thought as much. Mr. Ede done it on the cheap an' left a chip.”

    
“Not a bad thing to have a horse for a shilling,” suggested Mr. Croom. “You can always sell it for something.”

    
“Not so easy done,” said the blacksmith. “You got to feed it an' lodge it meanwhile.”

    
“Ede says it'll ride quiet,” said Mr. Croom. “He
says
it will. Anybody know?”

    
“I seen him ride it,” said a voice. “Went along quiet an' dull. He had a basket on his arm too. An' he opened a gate and let the basket fall. Never turned a hair.”

    
“What's the matter with it that he wants to raffle it, then?”

    
“He can't tie it up an' he can't keep it in. Jumps any wall. Go sailing over the moon if you'd let it. Kink in its mind about being tied up or shut in. Ede's tired of catching it. Besides he's afraid it'll do a damage in the village. He bought it cheap in Lewes Market, but it's no good to him.”

    
Some tickets were bought but there was no rush on them. Edwina walked out of the corner to the counter.

    
The raffle book was
one
to
two hundred,
got out in ink hurriedly by Mrs. Ede.

    
“He'll likely make his ten pound on him,” said Mr. Croom. “That's more'n he paid for him at Lewes.”

    
Solemnly the four girls lined against the counter and gazed at the book.

    
“I've thought of fortv-seven,” whispered Mally.

    
“But did you make yourself or did it come?”

    
“That's what I don't know.”

    
“I've got ten . . . printed on my brain, large . . . in red letters,” said Edwina.

    
Silence.

    
“It's like a visitation,” persisted Edwina in a whisper.

    
Silence.

    
“But perhaps I'm meant to avoid it,” she ended.

    
Each girl stretched her mind and tried to tremble to the finger of God.

    
“I'll have 119 please,” said Velvet unexpectedly and firmly to the postmistress.

    
She paid her shilling, and the other three watched her, envious and dismayed.

    
“What did you . . .” began Mally.

    
“I don't want to talk about it,” said Velvet, low, and walked out of the Post Office into the street.

    
The others followed her with tickets in their hands.

    
“We just took them anyhow,” said Edwina, rather cross. “What's the good of thinking!”

    
“Have you got one for Donald?”

    
“Number One.”

    
“Well, there we are anyway,” said Mally. “Let's go an' pin them in the Bible. It's dinner time.”

    
Meredith instantly thought of Africa. As they walked back towards the house Africa was like a yellow shade upon her mind. Where did she lie? Would she be visible again to the eye or was she packed up for ever? Mrs. Brown called to them from the door. “Wash your hands quick,” she said, “it's hot dinner.”

    
“I'll wash mine in the scullery,” said Merry and fled through the sitting-room.

    
Velvet whispered to the others, “Africa's dead.”

    
Mrs. Brown turned off the scullery tap that Merry might hear what she said. “Your little bird's buried,” she said. “Cage is all cleaned an' I've put the cock in
there. The greeny cock. But he's got no food or water yet. Run up an' see to him.”

    
Merry turned with streaming eyes and kissed her. “I'll rearrange them,” she choked, and went upstairs to the bedroom.

    
They sat down to dinner without Mr. Brown or Mi, and Mrs. Brown brought in the joint. Merry joined them, a little flushed, but peaceful.

    
A squawking and bleating came muffled through the wall.

    
“That's the last,” said mother. “Father'll be in soon.”

    
“Row those sheep make,” said Mally.

    
Edwina got up to get the red jelly from the sideboard.

    
“We've taken five tickets, shilling tickets, for a raffle for the Fair to-morrow,” said Velvet. “They're raffling that piebald.”

    
“The piebald?” said Mrs. Brown. “Ede getting rid of it? Well, I'm not surprised.”

    
“But what'll father . . .”

    
“Time enough to worry when you get it,” said Mrs. Brown. “Got that jelly, ‘Dwina? It's there behind the pickles.”

    
“Where's Donald?” said Velvet.

    
“Slep' on. But he ought to be woke now. You get him, Velvet.”

    
Velvet got up and went out by the yard door. She pressed the spaniels back with her foot as they struggled and changed places, smelling the joint.

    
Jacob came wriggling and smiling round the wall. He was late in, having been down the village to the sea,
watching the trippers unload from the charàbancs.

    
The whole day's heat was shimmering in the yard, The splendour of the heat stood upright like a tank of water. Dust moved in it and midges poured up and down. Immediately she faced the yard Velvet went into a vision. The bones and stones and boxes and dogs of the yard dropped away below and she was mounted on a cliff beside the piebald, on the hip of a cliff overlooking the sea. The sea was pale and a ship swum up in a haze on the sky. The piebald stared like a lunatic at the cobbled wall which bound his field. Velvet choked as she stared with him, and saw the grasses wave at the foot of the cobbles. The wall gave way as they cleared it and sank together, the sea rushing up. A gull's wing zipped and she saw the indigo shadow, and with her knees she felt the ribs spring in arcs from the horse's spine. His boundless heart rushed into hers. The soles of her feet cramped against the impending waters.

    
“I've woke,” called Donald from the shade where he lay on a mattress in Miss Ada's unused cart—its shafts propped on an upright barrel. Velvet crossed the yard and opened the little door at the back of the cart. “Get up,” she said, but the child only stared half-awake at the sky. She took him by his bare legs and pulled. His shirt left his pants and began to turn up over his arms.

    
“Can't walk. Carry me,” he said. His teeth chattered. “I'm shivery,” he said, and bumped his heavy head on to her thin chest as she struggled with him.

    
“That's only sleep,” she said. “It's dinner time, You've slept too long.”

    
Merry opened the sitting room door. “Are you coming?” she called.

    
“I've slept too long,” moaned Donald at the door, in Velvet's arms.

    
“Get down an' walk,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“Slept
too
long,” he wailed self-pityingly.

    
“A little tap-water an' you'll feel better,” said mother.

    
She took him and he wept a little and was carried away. He reappeared in a few minutes bright and silky. “I slept too long,” he said in quite a different voice, engagingly, socially.