The Little Girls (16 page)

“They’re Sheikie’s; she didn’t want them.”

“I would have liked them.”

“Looking for bones now, are we?” asked Sheikie, in a tolerant tone. The High Street bent to the right, before dying out: ahead was a V of sea. An artist was to be seen in the act of sketching. “Mostly, that place has old leaky kettles—” She broke off. “Hullo,
Trevor
—where’s Aubrey?”

Trevor, not there a minute ago, came into being walking beside them. “Playing cricket,” he answered.

“So I’d have
thought!
’
flashed Miss Beaker, with a toss of the head.

The shrimp of a boy in the round school cap looked sideways, meditatively, out of the corners of his spectacles at the three girls. “What are you doing?” he then asked them.

“What are
you
doing?”

“I’ve been down at the harbour. Watching,” he added— seeing he ought in some way to fill in the picture— “boats.”

They asked, with foreboding: “Where are you going now?”

“Back to the harbour.”

“Why on earth didn’t you
stay
there, then?” (It took, alas, but one half-minute of Trevor to drive one wild.)

The boy was surprised that’ this need be asked. “It was tea-time. I wanted some tea.”

“You don’t mean you’ve been the
whole
way
home?
”
cried Sheikie, with rapidly mounting frenzy.

“That would have been too far,” he explained to her, “as I was coming back again. So I thought I would go to the Blue Bird.”

“Oh, you did, did you!—You
went
to the Blue Bird?”

Trevor showed signs of patience (visible patience lent force to his bearing at times like these). Had he not made his movements perfectly clear? “It was nice, there,” he thought it enough to say, looking replete.

At that, Dicey paused in her tracks and began to sway.
“Trevor
, don’t be so cruel! How
can
you? Telling us, when We’re weak and fainting and hollow! When all this whole afternoon we’ve had nothing to eat or drink or—”

“Stop it!” she was advised. Too late. Her hullabaloo had brought the group to a further and frantic halt, in which Trevor was felt to begin to ponder. Never averting his spectacles from Dicey, he backed as from a swaying cobra, but gave attention to her complaint. As a thinker-out, Trevor was slow but sure. Two and two were about to be put together. “You didn’t any of you have any tea, then,” he concluded. “Why?”

Clare stony, Dicey artless as ever. Sheila, in the clear bell note she kept for taunting, sang out at him:
“Wouldn’t
you like to know!”

That, the boy considered. “No,” he finally told her, “I only wondered.” He then directed a look of liking, longing, and devoted intelligence away from them, at the harbour and its activities. Those you could not have enough of. Yet when the three pushed on again, he fell back into step with them: they were his fate, apparently, for what remained of Saturday afternoon. “Where are we going to go?” he asked open-mindedly. “Anywhere particular, were you going to? I don’t mind, so long as I’m home by seven.”

Ruin….They dared not look at each other. Demoralized, skidding, stumbling, they repeatedly bumped one another—and indeed others. It ended by Trevor’s steering them to the parapet: on to its top they—at his considerate invitation—hoisted themselves, to sit in a speechless row. It was highish. “You see well from here,” he informed them, “or at any rate, fairly.”
He
sat facing outward over the harbour, feet contentedly dangling over the nauseous water on which bobbed craft: his companions sat with condemning backs to it. Trevor now tugged from a pocket a small pair of opera glasses (mother-of-pearl: how come by?) which he proceeded to focus on a distant trawler. It was Mumbo who broke the thunderous silence. “I say, Trevor, that gelignite of your friend’s was beastly.—It never went
off.”

Trevor, having adjusted the glasses slightly, continued to use them. “I heard it hadn’t.”

“
Who
informed you, pray?” burst from Sheikie.

“What I mean is,” the boy said, “I’d have heard if it had. You did something not right to it, I should think.— If you got it back from your mother,” he said to Sheikie, “I’d take a look.”

“You can if you like. We’re tired of that.”

Silence fell again. Now, Trevor focussed his glasses on the horizon—along which (fortunately) a pair of funnels trailing some limp smoke could be seen to move: a tramp steamer making along the Channel, westward, pretty far out. This riveted Trevor. His captives seized the occasion to shuffle along the parapet on their bottoms, to a distance where they could begin to mutter. It was decided to make for the Beaker home, least distant residence on their route. A cache could be made at the Beakers’, Sheikie now being anxious to get the chain off—not only had it begun to gall her but she had reason to fancy it might be slipping. While there, no harm in taking a look at the Beaker coffers… . And mortified Dicey confessed to a baser crisis: a great flea had caught her—in Fagg’s, probably? As fleas do, it had taken a short rest after its change to its new surroundings, but it now was active in many parts of her. “Everything,” they told her, “bites you, Dicey.”

“Mother says I must be succulent,” said the poor child miserably. Barely could she wait to get to the Beakers’ to tear all her clothes off, truly to search. “I’m not going
home
with this flea on me,” she droned on. “Supposing it hopped on to Cousin Roland?”

“We don’t want your flea staying with us.”

“If we all could find it, we could kill it with soap.—You killed a flea with soap once, Mumbo, you told me.”

Sheila was asked sternly: “Where is your mother?”

“Out.”

“Are your sure? Where has she gone?”

“Spending the day at Irene’s, at Heme Bay.” (Having been “an afterthought”—an inspired one—on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Beaker, Sheila had among other distinctions two married sisters, one of whom was prominent at Heme Bay.) “Not back,” the daughter could guarantee, “till the nine train.”

How to get to the Beakers’? Sheikie’s bike, which could stretch to two passengers (handle-bar, back mudguard), had been unforeseeingly left at Feverel Cottage. Bus, yes—but everything cost, cost, cost! Heads turning as one, they eyed Trevor’s profile. Economics were simple: money of Trevor’s would be tick: inroads on
their
fund, what could ever repair?

“We’re going home now, Trevor!” Sheikie announced.

So incredulous was he, he not only turned but lowered the glasses. She, pushing off from the parapet, executed a beautiful outward leap on to
terra firma.
The arc of her movement, still more her in-balance landing, were accompanied by a distinct sound—the girls heard it, merely; Trevor harkened more closely, “Sheikie,” he said, “you’re clanking. Why are you clanking?”

Poised, she on the instant showed vast confusion—on his behalf. Vexed, but far, far more scandalized, she looked away from him, down that nose of hers. In a hushed tone, which followed a pained hush, she said: “Trevor, I don’t think
you
ought to ask.”

He turned pink.

“Oo,
Trevor
…” breathed horrified Dicey, promptly.

He turned bright scarlet.

Clare, in her simplifying way, offered him a chance to buy back his character. “Trevor,
you’ve
got some money.”

“Some,” he admitted. “Why?”

“We ought,” she said, taking him a little aside, “to get Sheikie home.”

A short line of carriages, open, some having awnings, waited all day down here by the Old Harbour, hoping for the best. Extruded from the plateau by the vogue for taxis, the horse carriages—in their heyday known as “victorias” —not seldom succeeded in scooping up footsore seekers after the picturesque, inducing them further to take the air along the bowery, sea-girt Lower Road, under the steeps crowned by the Promenade. Such carriages mounted to Upper Southstone by gradients known to themselves only… . Trevor, stuffing the opera glasses back into his pocket, walked off stiffly, on hire bent. He was to be watched accosting the driver at the head of the line. A bargain was on the eve of being concluded when Sheikie shrieked weakly: “One
with
an awning!” The third carriage, therefore, was set in motion: horse still dreaming, it crawled to meet them.

On the wide seat, under the languid awning, they disposed themselves in a noble row. Dicey, keeping a clutch on the place where the flea was, overflowed graciousness down on to the boy: “Oh, poor Trevor, aren’t
you
coming?” In return, he regarded her with demented blank-ness. Here was his half-crown, sweating on the palm of his hand … there was the harbour… . The carriage began to move, so he leaped in, seating himself back to the horse. The driver whipped up. The horse not only woke but began to trot. The victoria’s splendid springs cradling them gaily over the cobbles, away they bowled, admired by all—Dicey, letting go of the flea, waved.

The front door of 9 Ravenswood Gardens remained on the latch all day. One turn of the knob, one push, and one was within. Only strangers rang. This might have seemed out of character with the Beakers, but was not, since it served to direct attention to the law-and-order imposed by Beaker rule. Loitering on the part of suspicious persons did not occur in Ravenswood Gardens. Burglary was as unthinkable as a sack by Goths. “No Hawkers” notices were unnecessary, nor did street musicians venture into the place—which consisted of fifteen houses facing a railed-in glade. This not being a wood, there were no ravens. There was an orderly twitter of smaller birds, some of which when maddened by spring sang—an expiring trill or two was still to be heard in the otherwise June-ish hush of Ravenswood Gardens, as the carriage drew up.

Sheikie considered it better to stop the carriage—imperceptibly lightened by the descent of Trevor near
his
family mansion, two corners back—opposite No. 11 rather than No. 9. Her father always might be at home. He was, as cigar smell filling the hall from out the ajar dining-room door proclaimed. The Beakers lived chiefly in their rich dining-room, their drawing-room being for entertaining. Clustered on the thick mat, the girls eyed the stairs: could a rush be made? No. An enormous gerrumph sound, belly-deep, issued from what could only be Mr. Beaker. Though passive, it had an expectant note in it. The little light-of-his-eyes knew what was owing. She sketched a “Won’t take a minute!” gesture at her friends, then swung round the dining-room door at him. “Hullo, Daddy!”

“Hello, my duckie!”

The others looked through the hinge crack. There Mr. Beaker sat, looking pachydermatous. The armchair from which he protruded was of leather. The cigar from here being out of view, he appeared himself to be fuming, like a slow incense-cone, though of different odour. Comatose, reconciled to the absence of his spouse, he sickened with love at the sight of his little daughter duly: he would as soon not have. Dote, however, he always had, so he did. “Thought I heard you come in,” he said. “Been out?”

“Yes. We’re going upstairs.”

“Go where you like, m’duckie; go where you—I
say
, though!” Unmanned by a memory, Mr. Beaker crouched his head in his collar: gripping the arms of his chair, he hauled his bulk round, hauntedly, to the windows. “Minute ago, thought I heard a carriage.
Wasn’t
a carriage, was there?”

“There was a carriage. It drove away, though.”

“Drove away, did it?” He gerrumphed again. He subsided—as though under the touch of a childish hand cool-ingly-knowingly placed upon his forehead. Out came the root of the trouble. “Thought it was callers.”

“Dad-
dy
!”

“Y’never know, y’know!” He
had
, after all, been through deep waters.

“But Dad-
dy
, anybody
we’d
know would have come in a motor car—now, wouldn’t they?”

“You’re quite right.” He stared at her, dwellingly. She would go far.

“Now, we’re going upstairs!”

“Go where you like, my duckie.—Give me a kiss?”

She did.

Mr. Beaker had taken a minute, if hardly more.

One of the Beaker coffers was wedged in under the hall hat-stand, tented by dejectedly hanging overcoats and having as neighbour the vast brass evenly dinted gong. It contained two discolouring billiard balls and a whistle. The other was on a landing, under a table with an ample chenille cloth over it and Oriental fern pots. This one was empty. Both coffers were only too near the desideratum: the moralists spied on them noncommittally. Everyone pounded on up, up the flights of stairs.

Sheikie’s room was surely the prettiest in Southstone?—probably England, possibly the world? Round the frieze darted swallows, sprays of pink blossom in their beaks: the little dressing-table, on which the little mirror supported a trophy boxing glove, was draped in lovingly laundered flounces. Enamelled furniture shed an ivory gleam. From within the cupboard, tissue-wrapped dancing dresses (accordion pleated), block-toed dancing sandals (satin of every colour), and rainbow dancing scarves made their existences felt. Vestments. That these should cohabit with her St. Agatha’s winter reefer, serge kilts, games boots, hockey pads—such as any girl has—made the room not less of a little temple; though, it might be, a more curious one. Her castanets, on a ribbon, hung over a knob of the little bed: on the pillow, the teddy bear wore a bow to match. Her tambourine had the rather more restless air of an object constantly shifted from place to place. On the chimneypiece was a signed—how obtained?—photo of Pauline Chase flying in at the window as Peter Pan, and an unsigned more frantic photo of child tennis prodigy Suzanne Lenglen. There were three of Sheikie—one with wings, one as a bacchante, one in a mantilla.

She also was a collector of Free Samples, sending for any the makers offered. Lynx-eyed was her look-out for them. Patent foods packeted in miniature, tiny but strong-scented cakes of soap, creams in jars the circumference of a shilling, unguents or dentifrices or anything else squeezable out of baby tubes, condiments or lotions in bottles small enough to be swallowed… . The collection lived on display on the top and flap of the little desk at which she wrote nothing. Mutilated, the magazines from which she had chopped the coupons stayed piled on the window seat, which had frilly cushions.