Kitabı oku: «Peterkin», sayfa 3

CHAPTER IV
VERY MYSTERIOUS

Saturday came at last. Of course jolly things and times do come, however long the waiting seems. But the worst of it is that they are so soon gone again, and then you wish you were back at the looking forward; perhaps, after all, it is often the jolliest part of it.

Clement says I mustn't keep saying 'jolly'; he says 'nice' would be better in a book. He is looking it over for me, you see. I think 'nice' is a girl's word, but Clem says you shouldn't write slang in a book, so I try not to; though of course I don't really expect this story ever to be made into an actual book.

Well, Saturday came, and Peterkin and I set off to Mrs. Wylie's. She was a very nice person to go to see; she seemed so really pleased to have us. And she hadn't turned into a frog, or anything of the kind. She was standing out on the little balcony, watching for us, with a snowy-white, fluffy shawl on the top of her black dress, which made her seem more fairyish, or fairy-godmotherish, than ever. I never did see any one so beautifully neat and spotless as she always was.

As soon as the front door was opened, we heard her voice from upstairs.

'Come up, boys, come up. Polly and I have both been watching for you, and he is in great spirits to-day, and so amusing.'

We skurried up, and nearly tumbled over each other into the drawing-room. Then, of course, Peterkin's politeness came into force, and he walked forward soberly to shake hands with his old lady and give her mamma's love and all that sort of thing, which he was much better at than I. She had just stepped in from the balcony, but was quite ready to step out again at the parrot's invitation.

'Come quick,' he said, 'Polly doesn't like waiting.'

Really it did seem wonderful to me, though he wasn't the first parrot I had ever seen, and though I had heard him before – it did seem wonderful for a bird, only a bird, to talk so sensibly, and I felt as if there might be something in Peterkin's idea that he was more than he seemed. And to this day parrots, clever ones, still give me that feeling.

They are very like children in some ways. They are so 'contrairy.' You'd scarcely believe it, but no sooner did the creature catch sight of us two with his ugly, round, painted-bead-looking eyes – I don't like parrot's eyes – than he shut up, and wild horses couldn't have made him utter another word, much less Mrs. Wylie.

I was quite sorry for her, she seemed so disappointed.

It was just like a tiresome baby, whose mamma and nurse want to show off and bring it down to the drawing-room all dressed up, and it won't go to anybody, or say 'Dada,' or 'Mam-ma,' or anything, and just screeches. I can remember Elvira being like that, and I daresay we all were.

'It is too bad,' said our old lady. 'He has got to know me, and I have been teaching him some new words. And his mistress and her maid are out this afternoon, so I thought we should have him all to ourselves, and it would be so amusing. But' – just then a bright idea struck her – 'supposing you two go back into the room, so that he can't see you, and I will say "Good-bye, my dears," very loud and plainly, to make him think you have gone. Then I will come out again, and you shall listen from behind the curtain. I believe he will talk then, just as he has been doing.'

Pete and I were most willing to try – we were all three quite excited about it. It was really quite funny how his talking got the Polly treated as if he was a human being. We stalked back into the drawing-room, Mrs. Wylie after us, saying in a very clear tone —

'Good-bye, then, my dears. My love to your mamma, and the next time you come I hope Poll-parrot will be more friendly.'

And then I shut the door with a bang, to sound as if we had gone, though, of course, it was all 'acting,' to trick the parrot. Peterkin and I peeped out at him from behind the curtain, and we could scarcely help laughing out loud. He looked so queer – his head cocked on one side, listening, his eyes blinking; he seemed rather disgusted on the whole, I thought.

Then Mrs. Wylie stepped out again.

'Polly,' she said, 'I'm ashamed of you. Why couldn't you be kind and friendly to those nice boys who came to see you?'

'Pretty Poll,' he said, in a coaxing tone.

'No,' she replied; 'not pretty Poll at all. Ugly Poll, I should say.'

'Polly's so tired; take Polly in. Polly's cold,' he said, in what we called his natural voice; and then it seemed as if the first words had reminded him of the little girl, for his tone suddenly changed, and he began again: 'I'm so tired, Nana. No, I won't be good; no, I won't. I'll write a letter, and I won't be locked up,' in the squeakier sort of voice that showed he was copying somebody else.

'Nonsense!' said Mrs. Wylie. 'You are not tired or cold, Polly, and nobody is going to lock you up.'

He was silent for a moment, and peeping out again, we saw that he was staring hard at the old lady.

Then he said very meekly – I am not sure which voice it was in —

'Polly be good! Polly very sorry!'

Mrs. Wylie nodded approvingly.

'Yes,' she said, 'that's a much prettier way to talk. Now, supposing we have a little music,' and she began to sing in a very soft, very thin, old voice a few words of 'Home, Sweet Home.'

There was something very piteous about it. I think there is a better word than 'piteous' – yes, Clement had just told it me. It is 'pathetic.' I felt as if it nearly made me cry, and so did Peterkin. We told each other so afterwards, and though we were so interested in the parrot and in hearing him, I wished he would be quiet again, and let Mrs. Wylie go on with her soft, sad little song. But of course he didn't. He started, too, a queer sort of whistle, not very musical, certainly, but yet, no doubt, there was a bit of the tune in it, and now and then sounds rather like the words 'sweet' and 'home.' I do think, altogether, it was the oddest musical performance that ever was heard.

And when it was over, there came another voice. It was the maid next door, who had stepped quietly on to the balcony —

'I'm afraid, ma'am, I must take him in now,' she said, very respectfully. 'It is getting cold, and it would never do for him to get a sore throat just as he's learning to sing so. You are clever with him, ma'am; you are, indeed: there's quite a tune in his voice.'

Mrs. Wylie gave a little laugh of pleasure.

'And did the young gentlemen you were speaking of never come, after all?' the maid asked, as she was turning away, the big cage in her hand.

'Oh yes,' said Mrs. Wylie, 'they are here still. But Polly was very naughty,' and she explained about it.

'He's learnt that "won't be good" from next door,' said the girl, 'and I do believe he knows what it means.'

'I very sorry; I be good,' here said the parrot.

They both started.

'Upon my word!' exclaimed the maid.

'Has he learnt that from next door?' said Mrs. Wylie, in a lower voice.

'I hope so. It's very clever of him, and it's not unlikely. The child is getting better, I believe, and there's not near so much crying and complaining.'

'So I have heard,' said the old lady, and we fancied she spoke rather mysteriously, 'and I hope,' she went on, but we could not catch her next words, as she dropped her voice, evidently not wishing us to hear.

Peterkin squeezed my hand, and I understood. There was a mystery of some kind!

Then Mrs. Wylie came in and shut the glass door. She was smiling now with pleasure and satisfaction.

'I did get him to talk, did I not?' she said. 'He is a funny bird. By degrees I hope he will grow quite friendly with you too.'

I did not feel very sure about it.

'I'm afraid,' I said, 'that he will not see us enough for that. It isn't like you, Mrs. Wylie, for I daresay you talk to him every day.'

'Yes,' she replied, 'I do now. I have felt more interested in him since – ' here she hesitated a little, then she went on again – 'since the evening I found Peterkin listening to him,' and she smiled very kindly at Pete. 'Before that, I had not noticed him very much; at least, I had not made friends with him. But he has a wonderful memory; really wonderful, you will see. He will not have forgotten you the next time you come, and each time he will cock his head and pretend to be shy, and gradually it will get less and less.'

This was very interesting, but what Peterkin and I were really longing for was some news of the little girl. We did not like to ask about her. It would have seemed rather forward and inquisitive, as the old lady did not mention her at all. We felt that she had some reason for it, and of course, though we could not have helped hearing what she and the parrot's maid had said to each other, we had to try to think we hadn't heard it. Clement says that's what you should do, if you overhear things not meant for you, unless, sometimes, when your having heard them might really matter. Then, he says, it's your duty – you're in honour bound – to tell that you've heard, and what you've heard.

'Now,' said our old lady, 'I fancy tea will be quite ready. I thought it would be more comfortable in the dining-room. So shall we go downstairs?'

We were quite ready, and we followed her very willingly. The dining-room was even smaller than the drawing-room, and that was tiny enough. But it was all so neat and pretty, and what you'd call 'old-fashioned,' I suppose. It reminded me of a doll-house belonging to one of our grandmothers – mamma's mother, who had kept it ever since she was a little girl, and when we go to stay with her in the country she lets us play with it. Even Peterkin and I are very fond of it, or used to be so when we were smaller. There's everything you can think of in it, down to the tiniest cups and saucers.

The tea was very jolly. There were buns and cakes, and awfully good sandwiches. I remember that particular tea, you see, though we went to Mrs. Wylie's often after that, because it was the first time. The cups were rather small, but it didn't matter, for as soon as ever one was empty she offered us more. I would really be almost ashamed to say how many times mine was filled.

And Mrs. Wylie was very interesting to talk to. She had never had any children of her own, she told us, and her husband had been dead a long time. I think he had been a sailor, for she had lots of curiosities: queer shells, all beautifully arranged in a cabinet, and a book full of pressed and dried seaweed, and stuffed birds in cases. I don't care for stuffed birds: they look too alive, and it seems horrid for them not to be able to fly about and sing. Peterkin took a great fancy to some of the very tiny ones – humming-birds, scarcely bigger than butterflies; and, long afterwards, when we went to live in London, Mrs. Wylie gave him a present of a branch with three beauties on it, inside a glass case. He has it now in his own room. And she gave me four great big shells, all coloured like a rainbow, which I still have on my mantelpiece.

Once or twice – I'm going back now to that first time we went to have tea with her – I tried to get the talk back to the little girl. I asked the old lady if she wouldn't like to have a parrot of her own. I thought it would be so amusing. But she said No; she didn't think she would care to have one. The one next door was almost as good, and gave her no trouble or anxiety.

And then Peterkin asked her if there were any children next door. Mrs. Wylie shook her head.

'No,' she said. 'The parrot's mistress is an old maid – not nearly as old as I am, all the same, but she lives quite alone; and on the other side there are two brothers and a sister, quite young, unmarried people.'

'And is the – the little girl the only little girl or boy in her house?' asked Peterkin.

He did stumble a bit over asking it, for it had been very plain that Mrs. Wylie did not want to speak about her; but I got quite hot when I heard him, and if we had been on the same side of the table, or if his legs had been as long as they are now, I'd have given him a good kick to shut him up.

Our old lady was too good-natured to mind; still, there was something in her manner when she answered that stopped any more questions from Pete.

'Yes,' she said, 'there are no other children in that house, or in the terrace, except some very tiny ones, almost babies, at the other end. I see them pass in their perambulators, dear little things.'

It was quite dark by the time we had finished tea, and the lamps were lighted upstairs in the drawing-room, where Mrs. Wylie showed us some of the curiosities and things that I have already written about.

They were rather interesting, but I think we've got to care more for collections and treasures like that, now, than we did then. Perhaps we were not quite old enough, and, I daresay, it was a good deal that the great reason we liked to go to Mrs. Wylie's was because of the parrot and the mysterious little girl. At least, Peterkin's head was full of the little girl. I myself was beginning to get rather tired of all his talk about her, and I thought the parrot very good fun of himself.

So when the clock struck six, and Mrs. Wylie asked us if mamma had fixed any time for us to be home by – it wasn't that she wanted to get rid of us, but she was very afraid of keeping us too late – we thought we might as well go, for mamma had said, 'soon after six.'

'Is any one coming to fetch you?' Mrs. Wylie said.

I didn't quite like her asking that: it made me seem so babyish. I was quite old enough to look after Pete, and the fun of going home by ourselves through the lighted-up streets was one of the things we had looked forward to.

But I didn't want Master Peterkin to begin at me afterwards about not being polite, so I didn't show that I was at all vexed. I just said —

'Oh no, Peterkin will be all right with me!'

And then we said good-bye, and 'thank you very much for inviting us.' And Pete actually said —

'May we come again soon, please?'

His ideas of politeness were rather original, weren't they?

But Mrs. Wylie was quite pleased.

'Certainly, my dear. I shall count on your doing so. And I am glad you spoke of it, for I wanted to tell you that I am going to London the end of this next week for a fortnight. Will you tell your dear mamma so, and say that I shall come to see her on my return, and then we must fix on another afternoon? I am very pleased to think that you care to come, and I hope you feel the same,' she went on, turning to me.

She was so kind that I felt I had been rather horrid, for I had enjoyed it all very much. And I said as nicely as I could, that I'd like to come again, only I hoped we didn't bother her. She beamed all over at that, and Peterkin evidently approved of it too, for he grinned in a queer patronising way he has sometimes, as if I was a baby compared to him.

I was just going to pull him up for it after we had got on our coats and caps, and were outside and the door shut, but before I had got farther than – 'I say, youngster,' – he startled me rather by saying, in a very melancholy tone —

'It's too bad, Giles, isn't it? Her going away, and us hearing nothing of the little girl. I really thought she'd have asked her to tea too.'

'How you muddle your "her's" and "she's"!' I said. But of course I understood him. 'I think you muddle yourself too. If there's a mystery, and you know you'd be very disappointed if there wasn't, you couldn't expect the little girl to come to tea just as if everything was quite like everybody else about her.'

'No, that's true,' said he, consideringly. 'P'raps she's invisible sometimes, or p'raps she's like the "Light Princess," that they had to tie down for fear she'd float away, or p'raps – '

'She's invisible to us, anyway,' I interrupted, for, as I said, I was getting rather tired of Pete's fancies about the little girl, 'and so – '

But just as I got so far, we both stopped – we were passing the railing of the house at that moment, and voices talking rather loudly caught our ears. Peterkin touched my arm, and we stood quite still. No one could see us, it was too dark, and there was no lamp just there, though some light was streaming out from the lower windows of the house. One of them, the dining-room one, was a little open, even though it was a chilly evening.

It was so queer, our hearing the voices and almost seeing into the room, just as we had been making up our minds that we'd never know anything about the little girl; it seemed so queer, that we didn't, at first, think of anything else. It wasn't for some minutes, or moments, certainly, that it came into my head that we shouldn't stay there peeping and listening. I'm afraid it wasn't a very gentlemanly sort of thing to do. As for Peterkin, I'm pretty sure he never had the slightest idea that we were doing anything caddish.

What we heard was this —

'No, I don't want any more tea. I'd better go to bed. It's so dull, Nana.'

Then another voice replied – it came from some one further back in the room, but we could not distinguish the words —

'There aren't any stars. You may as well shut the window. And stars aren't much good. I want some one to play with me. Other little – ' but just then we saw the shadow of some one crossing the room, and the window – it was a glass-door kind of window like the ones up above, which opened on to the balcony, for there was a little sort of balcony downstairs too – was quickly closed. There was no more to be heard or seen; not even shadows, for the curtains were now drawn across.

Pete gave a deep sigh, and I felt that he was looking at me, though it was too dark to see, and there was no lamp just there. He wanted to know what I thought.

'Come along,' I said, and we walked on.

'Did you hear?' asked Peterkin at last. 'She said she wanted somebody to play with her.'

'Yes,' I said, 'it is rather queer. You'd think Mrs. Wylie might have made friends with her, and invited her to tea. But it's no good our bothering about it,' and I walked a little faster, and began to whistle. I did not want Pete to go on again talking a lot about his invisible princess, for such she seemed likely to remain.

It was far easier, however, to get anything into Peterkin's fancy than to get it out again, as I might have known by experience. We had not gone far before I felt him tugging at my arm.

'Don't walk so fast, Gilley,' he said – poor, little chap, he was quite breathless with trying to keep up with me, so I had to slacken a bit, – 'and do let me talk to you. When we get home I shan't have a chance – not till to-morrow morning in bed, I daresay; for they'll all be wanting to hear about Mrs. Wylie, and what we had for tea, and everything.'

I did not so much mind about that part of it, but I did not want to be awakened before dawn the next morning to listen to all he'd got to say. So I thought I might as well let him come out with some of it.

'What do you want to talk about?' I said.

'Oh! of course, you know,' he replied. 'It's about the poor little girl. I am so dreffully sorry for her, Gilley, and I want to plan something. It's no good asking Mrs. Wylie. We'll have to do something ourselves. I'm afraid the people she's with lock her up, or something. P'raps they daren't let her go out, if there's some wicked fairy, or a witch, or something like that, that wants to run off with her.'

'Well, then, the best thing to do is to lock her up,' I said sensibly.

But that wasn't Peterkin's way of looking at things.

'It's never like that in my stories,' he said – and I know he was shaking his curly head, – 'and some of them are very, very old – nearly as old as Bible stories, I believe; so they must be true, you see. There's always somebody that comes to break the – the – I forget the proper word.'

'The enchantment, you mean,' I said.

'No, no; a shorter word. Oh, I know – the spell,' he replied. 'Yes, somebody comes to break the spell. And that's what we've got to do, Gilley. At least, I'm sure I've got to, and you must help me. You see, it's all been so funny. The parrot knows, I should think, for I'm sure he's partly fairy. But, very likely, he daren't say it right out, for fear of the bad fairy, and – '

'Perhaps he's the bad fairy himself,' I interrupted, half joking, but rather interested, all the same, in Peterkin's ideas.

'Oh no,' he replied, 'I know he's not, and I'm sure Mrs. Wylie has nothing to do with the bad fairy.'

'Then why do you think she won't talk about the little girl, or invite her, or anything?' I asked.

Pete seemed puzzled.

'I don't know,' he said. 'There's a lot to find out. P'raps Mrs. Wylie doesn't know anything about the spell, and has just got some stupid, common reason for not wanting us to play with the little girl, or p'raps' – and this was plainly a brilliant idea – 'p'raps the spell's put on her without her knowing, and stops her when she begins to speak about it. Mightn't it very likely be that, Giles?'

But I had not time to answer, for we had got to our own door by now, and it was already opened, as some tradesman was giving James a parcel. So we ran in.