by Mary Chase
So today as the Countess came running down the stairs, Loretta got ready for these dear, familiar words. And she heard them, too. But as she spoke them the Countess was looking at—Colin! Loretta thought there must be a mistake. The sun must be in the Countess’s eyes. So she coughed and said “Here I am, Countess.”
The Countess did not hear her. She was gazing so tenderly at Colin. And her eyes as she looked at him spoke, too. They said, “But how wonderful you are! How long I have waited for you.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Colin.
The Countess clapped her hands and turned to the General.
“Did you hear that, General? He said— ‘Gee, thanks.’ Isn’t that delightful?”
“Magnificent.” The General nodded. He picked up Colin’s hand and shook it heartily. “Wit,” he smiled at him, “wit and dash along with it. A pleasure, old boy, a real pleasure.”
When they did turn and speak to Loretta their smiles were as warm and wonderful as ever. But it was not the same. Something terrible had happened!
Once on the playgrounds Loretta had been hit in the head with a big indoor baseball—thud! This was worse. But she said nothing as she followed Colin and the Countess and the General up the stairs. Instead, she tried to walk closer than ever by the Countess’s side.
Colin’s face was beaming with happiness. Gosh, they liked him! He felt wonderful.
Now they were all having tea in the Countess’s little library. An autumn breeze billowed the curtains. It fanned the flames on the candles in silver candlesticks on the tea table. Before Colin was a plate piled high with the best things he had ever tasted: sandwiches with cheese, nuts, chicken; cakes with whipped cream and cherries. As he lifted a cake to his mouth, the Countess, who did not seem to mind that his hands were dirty, leaned forward. “Do tell me about yourself,” she said. “You fascinate me.”
“Great chap.” The General slapped him on the back. ‘Would you care to try on my sword?” He stood up, unbuckled it and handed it to Colin.
“Try it on,” the Countess urged, “I should adore to see you try it on.”
Colin’s heart pounded with happiness. It was too big, of course, but he could hold it around him just the same.
“Can I—” he patted the white leather sheath—“take it out?”
“By all means,” said the General, “and please do.”
The sword itself was like a shaft of winter sunlight, bright and cold. The hilt was dull gold and made in the shape of a woman’s head, and when you held it in your hand your fingers felt her neck. It was light as a feather and the point was sharp as pain.
Colin cried out, “En garde,” and he lunged forward.
“Oh, look out,” said Loretta sullenly, “watch what you’re doing.”
“Shhh—” The Countess held up her little white hand.
“Bravo,” cried the General.
“Stunning,” murmured the Countess as she sipped her tea. “Such poise! Such style! See, General, how beautifully he throws back his head?”
“This lad,” said the General, “is a swordsman of the old school—a poet of the blade.”
Loretta went out of the room and slammed the door. No one noticed. Colin was so proud and so happy! “Well,” he began, “I can do it better than that. I did it better yesterday. Yesterday I ripped all of the silk curtains at our house. I went like this—” He lunged forward again.
“Stout fella,” said the General, “stout, stout fella.”
“Of course,” Colin added, “I got in trouble at home over it.”
“Chin up,” the General said. “Trouble to a swordsman is meat and drink.”
“My allowance was taken away and I won’t get to ride my bike for a week.”
The General helped himself to a cake. “Never cared for a bicycle, myself.” He turned to the Countess. “Stupid vehicle—you agree, my dear?”
She smiled at Colin. “A bicycle for you? Oh no. You should have a long, low red sports model convertible with your name emblazoned—not painted, but emblazoned—on the door. Much, much, more your style and you do have style. And by the way,” here she looked at the General meaningfully, “you should also have a watch, a fine gold watch with your name engraved on the back.”
“I did have.” Colin stopped lunging. “But I lost it.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Where,” asked the General, “where did you lost it— I mean—lose it?”
“At school, I think,” said Colin. “In the gym, I think.”
“Oh.” The Countess smiled, and she looked relieved. “What a pity!”
The General smiled at her. Obviously the boy knew nothing. Everybody was happy. It was a lovely afternoon. Colin was thinking that never in his life had he had such a good time. And the minute he noticed his happiness he was sorry he had remarked it even in his thoughts. Maybe you should never notice when you are so happy. Because suddenly it changed after he had his third cup of tea. He chanced to say something. What made him say it, he never knew. He looked at his teacup and said, “My sister has a teacup like this, only it is a tiny, tiny cup.”
There was a silence. It got so quiet in that room, you could hear the candle flames sputtering. You could almost hear the air. When Colin raised his eyes from the little blue roses in the bottom of the teacup, the Countess was looking at him. Her eyes were cold. They had hard little points glittering in them, like the point on the sword. The General was frowning, and his hand was on his sword! Colin, suddenly, felt as cold as he had felt warm before. What had happened? What had he said? What had he done? He sat very still.
After endless minutes, the Countess spoke. “What did you say?” she asked in a low voice.
Colin gulped. “Nothing. I didn’t say nothing.”
The General pushed back his chair and jumped to his feet. The Countess put her hand on his arm. “One moment, General.” She turned to Colin again.
“You said something about a—teacup.”
Colin leaned back in relief. “Oh, that,” he tried to laugh. “I said my sister had one like this in her dollhouse. But it’s not really like this. It’s only a teeny, teeny teacup.”
“Your sister, Loretta?” prompted the Countess.
“No, my sister Kathy,” Colin said.
Loretta walked back into the room. She went right to Colin.
“It’s late. We got to go back.”
“Back!” Here in this beautiful room where he was treated like a man—a brave and bold swordsman and a type for a sports car, Colin had forgotten all about home. The Countess gave him her hand.
“Dear Colin,” she said, “it’s been delightful—completely and utterly delightful. I shall never forget it.”
“Yeah,” he answered, “it’s been—well—it’s been—okay.”
“You must promise me something.” Her voice was pleading with him. “You must come again—on Thursday, at four—promise!”
“Sure,” he said, “I’ll try to make it.”
The Countess watched him run down the stone steps where Loretta was waiting for him at the bridge. She called out to him, “Colin!” He turned. “Do bring Kathy!”
“Bring Kathy?” He was so surprised! He never brought Kathy anywhere. She was his sister.
“Yes.” The Countess had not finished. “Bring Kathy. We would adore to meet her and please, please ask her to bring her little teacup.”
On the way home, across the bridge and all through the tunnel, Colin talked happily.
Loretta said nothing. She had walked across the bridge this afternoon, a girl named Loretta Mason Potts. But that girl had dropped into the stream and vanished. Now as she looked around the forest she didn’t say anything out loud. But she asked the trees a question, “Isn’t there anything, anyone, anywhere, for me, just for me and no one else?”
But the trees did not answer her. The mist rising from the stream did not answer her. Nothing answered her.
9. COLIN WANTS A JAGUAR
It was two days later tha
t Colin got in trouble.
“Colin,” the teacher’s voice spoke to him sharply in class. “Your mind is not on arithmetic. Where is it?”
He did not hear her. He was not in arithmetic class. He was standing in a room in a castle, a beautiful sword in his hand.
“Colin!” she said again but he did not hear her.
“Colin,” she said for the third time and this time very sharply.
He jumped to his feet. “En garde,” he cried out and lunged forward.
He heard loud laughter. He turned and saw that he wasn’t in a castle. He was in school. There was no beautiful Countess clapping her hands in admiration, crying out, “Bravo! Oh such style!”
There was the teacher frowning at him; the children laughing at him. In his hand was not a sword—but a ruler!
“I don’t believe you are feeling well,” said the teacher. “You had better go home and lie down and I will telephone your mother.”
Colin walked home slowly. This afternoon he walked home past the drugstore because he wanted to buy some comic books.
The clerk pointed to the stack of comic books he had selected and said, “That will be two dollars and forty-five cents, please.”
“Charge it to my mother, Mrs. Mason, 805 Gaylord Street,” Colin answered and turned to walk out.
But the clerk who had long arms, reached over the counter and took the comic books from Colin’s hands. “Your mother,” he turned his back to put them again on the rack, “said none of you kids were to charge any more comic books at this store.”
So when Colin came out of the drugstore, he was not a happy person. The sky seemed to be a dreary blue and the long cement walk stretching before him to the corner seemed as if it would never end. What a world! No fun!
Then he had an idea. He walked back into the store and slid onto the leather seat of the stool before the soda fountain.
“What’ll it be?” asked the same clerk.
“A double chocolate ice-cream soda.”
But the clerk did not pick up an empty glass, spoon in the ice cream and then press the squirter. He laid an open palm on the marble counter. “Let’s have a look at your money.”
Colin decided to let him look at it. He dug into his pants pocket and brought forth a ball of string, a knife and two pennies.
“No soap,” said the clerk, which Colin thought was a silly thing to say. He wasn’t buying soap.
“Come back when you’ve got a quarter,” said the clerk.
“Charge it to my mother, Mrs. Mason, 805 Gaylord Street.”
The clerk nodded, but did not smile. “805 Gaylord Street! I see she hasn’t moved since you were in here a minute ago. She told us not to charge any more ice-cream sodas ordered by any of you kids.”
Now when Colin got outside on the street this time he felt twice as unhappy. He couldn’t decide whether to go down and get on a train or get on a big boat or go out to the airport and get on an airplane. Since he couldn’t decide, he started to walk home.
It was halfway up the block he saw it. It was lying like a ship at dock. It was red and shiny as a cherry. The tires were snow white and the nickel shone like silver. It was brand new. The seats were red leather.
“Jaguar!” Colin was so excited he was talking to himself. “A sports convertible Jaguar! What a nervous deal!”
He looked through the window. The instruments on the dash board sparkled like jewels. Had They—had They—left it for him? Oh, boy! Life was good again! He opened the door and slid inside.
He did not see the police car come cruising down the block.
Mother could not believe her eyes a half-hour later when two uniformed policemen walked up on her porch with Colin between them.
“Keep this boy outta cars that don’t belong to him,” they told her. Then they turned and went back to the cruise car.
But some of the neighbors were watching.
Mother was so shocked she could hardly speak.
“Colin,” she said finally, “what does this mean? There must be some explanation.”
Colin gave her one.
“I am the type for a long, low red convertible sports car,” he told her, “so why don’t you sell my bike and get me one.”
If Mother could hardly speak before it was twice as hard now for her to get the words out of her throat.
“It’s more my style,” Colin explained further, “and I do have style, great style. They both said that.”
Mother was able to use her voice.
“They?” she asked quietly. “Who are they?”
Colin saw that he had gone too far.
“Nobody,” he answered, “nobody at all.”
“I should think not,” said Mother, and her face was getting red. “And how dare you be brought home by policemen and then ask me to buy you a sports car when for two days you have missed all of your arithmetic problems?”
She held up two papers, one marked twenty-five and the other marked zero. “What’s happened to your school-work? You used to get A in everything.”
“Really,” said Colin, “how dull of me!”
Mother’s voice was sad when she spoke again.
“You will go upstairs now and study and you will study every afternoon from now on until your grades are good again.”
Colin started up the stairs. Pretty dull stuff this. Oh, well, there was a place where he was treated like a man. And only three more days until he went back there. He guessed he could stick this out until then.
Mother watched him go upstairs.
What had happened to Colin? There was a sly, secret kind of look in his eyes. She had seen that same look some place before. Loretta! Yes, Loretta!
And even as she thought this, Loretta came over to her and handed her a piece of paper. It was an arithmetic paper. In green crayon, it said, “D-minus,” and then it said, “shows improvement.”
Any other time Mother would have smiled. Today she didn’t. She was still thinking about Colin.
“That’s fine, dear,” she murmured as she handed it back to Loretta; “it says, ‘shows improvement.”’
“I know it,” Loretta answered, “I saw it. I’m the one gave it to you.”
“So you are.” Mother nodded. “I’m proud of you, Loretta.”
“I’m proud of you too, ma’am,” Loretta said.
On Thursday at ten minutes of four, Colin and Kathy finally found Loretta. She was sitting alone on the steps of the back porch. She was watching squirrels in the maple tree.
“Well,” said Colin.
“A well is a hole in the ground,” she told him without turning her head.
“Come on.” He was so anxious. “Let’s get going—you know where.”
“So,” said Loretta, “so what?” But she came.
With Colin telling Kathy to “wait and see and shh,” they ran quickly up the stairs to her room, Loretta following slowly behind, kicking at the steps of the stairs.
Kathy got frightened when she saw the tunnel behind the clothes closet wall and even more frightened when Colin pulled her across that funny part of the bridge. She turned here and started to run back.
Colin caught her. “Cream puff,” he said. “Come on.” He couldn’t understand why the Countess had insisted he bring Kathy. Loretta understood it still less. Slowly Kathy walked the rest of the way over the bridge and when she saw the big beautiful stone house she forgot everything else.
Kathy could hardly believe her eyes when the Countess ran down the steps crying, “General, they’re here. They’re here. You’re Kathy,” she cried, “and you did come. You didn’t forget me. Thank you. Bless you. And Colin—and Loretta. How kind of you to remember.” The Countess pressed Colin’s hand.
Remember? Colin had thought of nothing else. He had thought of it the last thing when he went to bed at night, all day long and the first thing when he woke up in the morning. But he didn’t say this. He said, “Oh, that’s all right.”
The General was bowing over Kathy’s hand. “R
avishing—beautiful,” he murmured.
Kathy was too surprised to speak. A general, with a sword, bowing over her hand, treating her like a grown-up woman. She tried to act like a grown-up woman. “Oh, thank you,” she said, “Thank you very much.”
The General turned to the Countess, “Countess, did you hear that? She said, ‘Thank you.”’
“I heard it.” The Countess smiled. “She is charming, utterly, utterly charming.” The Countess touched the string of green beads at Kathy’s neck, “She should be wearing real pearls.”
There was a cry of pain from Loretta. The Countess ran to her, “Loretta, Loretta, dear child, what’s wrong?”
“Let go,” cried Loretta, “let go of me—it’s my foot. I broke my foot.” And she held one foot in the air and hopped around with her face twisted up and her eyes closed.
The Countess called the General. “Poor, dear child” she said. “General, you must carry her up the steps.”
“Of course, of course” he said, and he picked Loretta up.
She moaned as he carried her in his arms up the steps while the others ran behind. At the top step he put her down gently.
“Better now?” he asked her.
“I can’t tell yet,” Loretta said, “but I almost died.”
Today they had tea in the Countess’s blue velvet boudoir. Colin did not care to try the boat bed because he noticed the General stood aside and watched all of this with a little smile on his face. But Kathy tried it. She could hardly bear to get out of it. “Do it again,” she kept crying. “Turn it on again.” She was enchanted with everything. Again and again the Countess had to set the alarm and they all listened to the sound of birds chirping.
Colin was amused at first. But after a while he got tired of this. He stood beside the General and when the General winked at him and said, “Women, these women!” Colin wanted to say something which fit the occasion. He finally thought of it. “The world is full of them.”