“Oh-h-h! Is that why—?”
“That is why,” he replied pathetically. “For living with that tiger family so long, I almost turned into one myself. The tiger nature got into me. I snarl and growl, I use my teeth ferociously when hungry, I walk stealthily on tiptoe, I let my whiskers grow, and my colour has the tint of Indian tigers’ skins.”
“Have you got a tail, too?”
He glared into the blue eyes of Maria, sternly. “It’s growing,” he whispered horribly, “it’s growing.”
There was a pause in which credulity shook hands with faith. Belief was in the air. If doubt did whisper, “Let me see, please,” it was too low to be quite audible. Come-Back Stumper was surrounded by an atmosphere of black-edged glory suddenly; he wore a halo; his feet were dipped in mystery.
“Then what’s an orgully occasion?” somebody asked.
“This!” replied Stumper. But he uttered it so savagely that no one cared to press for further details. Clearly it was a secret and confidential moment, and “inaugural occasion” had something to do with the glory of wearing an incipient tail. Glory and mystery clothed Stumper from that moment with Indian splendour. At least, he thought so….
“And the tiger?” came the whispering question.
“Ugh-h-h-h!” he shuddered; “I’ll tell you. But I must think a moment quietly first.”
“His tail hurts,” Maria told Tim beneath her breath, while they waited for the story to begin.
“So would yours,” was the answer, “if you had a cold at the same time, too. A girl would simply cry.” And he looked contempt at her, but unutterable respect at his soldier friend.
“This tiger,” began the traveller, in a heavy voice, “was a—a very unusual tiger. I met it, that is to say, most unexpectedly. It was in a tropical jungle, where the foliage was so thick that the sunlight hardly penetrated at all. It was dark as night even in the daytime. There were monkeys overhead and snakes beneath, and bananas were so plentiful that every time my elephant knocked against a tree a shower of fruit fell down like hail and tickled its skin.”
“You were on an elephant, then?”
“We were all on elephants. On my particular elephant there was a man to load for me and a man to guide the beast. We moved slowly and cautiously. It was dark, as I said, but the showers of falling bananas made yellow streaks against the black that the elephant constantly mistook for tigers flying through the air as they leaped in silent fury against the howdah in which we crouched upon his back. The howdah, you know, is the saddle.”
“Was the elephant friendly?”
“Very friendly indeed; but he found it difficult to see, and all of a sudden he would give a hop and a jump that nearly flung me off his shoulders. For a long time—”
“That was the bananas tickling him, I suppose?”
“This continued without anything dangerous happening, but all at once he gave a tremendous leap into the air, lifted his trunk, trumpeted like an Army bugle, and then set off at full speed through the tangled jungle. He had stupidly stepped upon a cobra! And the cobra, before it was squashed to pulp, had stung him between the big and little toe.”
“On purpose?” Judy asked.
“In an Indian jungle everything’s done on purpose. My elephant raced away, trumpeting in agony, at twenty miles an hour. The driver lost his balance and fell off; the other man, scrambling along to take his place and steer the monster, fell off after him, taking both my guns with him as he went; and I myself, crouching in the swaying howdah, and holding on for grim death, continued to tear through the jungle on top of my terrified and angry elephant. Then, suddenly, the branch of a tree caught the howdah in the middle and swept it clear. The elephant rushed on. The howdah, with myself inside it, swung in mid-air like a caught balloon. But I saw it could not hold on long. There was just time to scramble out of it into safety upon the branch when there came a sound of ripping, and the thing fell smash upon the ground some twenty feet below, leaving me alone in an Indian jungle—up a tree.”
And he paused a moment to produce the right effect and reap the inevitable glory of applause.
Out of the breathless silence sprang a voice at once: “Was the elephant badly hurt?” And then another: “I thought elephants were too big to feel a bite like that.” Followed by a third—Maria’s: “It wasn’t fair to step on it and expect it to do nothing.”
But no single word about his own predicament—its horror, danger, loneliness, and risk. No single syllable. Even the Hindus, the driver, and the man who carried the guns, were left unmentioned. Bananas were equally ignored. The tiger itself had passed into oblivion.
“Thanks most awfully,” said Tim, politely, after an interval. “It must have been awful for you.” It was said as spokesman for the other listeners. All were kind and grateful, but actual interest there was none. They took the pause to mean that the story was at an end; but they had not cared about it because they—did not believe it.
“Simply awful,” the boy added, as though, perhaps, he had not made it quite clear that he wished to thank yet could not honestly praise. “Wasn’t it, Judy?” And he jerked his head round towards his elder sister.
“Oh, awful—yes,” agreed that lady.
But neither of them risked inviting the opinion of Maria. Her uncompromising nature was too well known for that. Nevertheless, unasked, she offered her criticism too: “Awful,” she said, her podgy face unmoved, her blue eyes fixed upon the ceiling. And the whole room seemed to give a long, deep sigh.
Now, for the hero, this was decidedly an awkward moment; he had done his best and miserably failed. He was no story-teller, and they had found him out. None the less, however, he was a real hero. He faced the situation as a brave man should:
For his tale was mediocre,
And his face of yellow ochre
Took a tinge of saffron sorrow in his fright;
Yet he rose to the occasion,
Without anger or evasion,
And did his best to put the matter right.
“Tell me how you knew,” he asked at length, facing the situation. “What made you guess?”
“Because, in the first place, you’re not an atom like a tiger, anyhow,” explained Judy.
“And you made the jungle so very dark,” said Tim, “that you simply couldn’t have seen the bananas falling.”
“And we know you haven’t got a tail at all,” Maria added, clinchingly.
“Of course,” he agreed; “your discernment does you credit, very great credit indeed. Few of the officials under me in India had as much.”
Judy looked soothingly at him and stroked his sleeve. Somehow or other she divined, it seemed, he felt mortified and ashamed. He was a dear old thing, whatever happened.
“Never mind,” she whispered, “it really doesn’t matter. It was very nice to hear about your tiger. Besides—it must hurt awfully, having a cold like this.”
“I knew,” put in Tim sympathetically, “the moment you began about the bananas falling. But I didn’t say anything, because I knew it couldn’t last—anything that began like that.”
“But it got wonderful towards the end,” insisted Judy.
“Till he was in the tree,” objected her brother. “He never could really have got along a branch like that.”
“No,” agreed Judy, thoughtfully, “that was rather silly.”
They continued discussing the story for some time as though its creator was elsewhere. He kept very still. Maria already slept in a soft and podgy ball on his lap….
“I am a lonely old thing,” he said suddenly, with a long sigh, for in reality he was deeply disappointed at his failure, and had aspired to be their story-teller as well as playmate. Ordinary life bored him dreadfully. He had melancholy yearnings after youth and laughter. “Let’s do something else now. What do you say to a turn of hide-and-seek? Eh?”
The miraculous Maria woke at this, yawned like a cat, and nearly rolled off on to the floor. “I dreamed of a real tiger,” she inf
ormed every one. But no one was listening. Judy and Tim were prancing wildly.
“If your cold isn’t too bad,” cried Judy, “it would be lovely.” No grown-up could have been more thoughtful of his welfare than she was.
“I’ll hide,” he said, “and in five minutes you come and find me.” He went towards the door into the passage.
“Choose a warm place, and keep out of draughts,” she cried after him. And he was gone. He nearly collided with a servant carrying a tray, but the servant, hearing his secret instructions, vanished again instantly in the direction of the kitchen. Five minutes later—an alleged five minutes—the children began their search. But they never found him. They hunted high and low, from attic to cellar, in gun-room, scullery, and pantry, even climbing up the ladder from the box-room to the roof, but without result. Colonel Stumper had disappeared. He was K.C.B.
“D’you think he’s offended?” suggested Judy, as they met at length in the hall to consider the situation.
“Of course not,” said Tim emphatically, “a man like that! He’s written a book on Scouting!”
“I’ve finished,” Maria mentioned briefly, and sat down.
On Judy’s puzzled face there appeared an anxious expression then. His cold, she remembered, was very heavy. “I looked under every sofa and into every cupboard,” she said, as though she feared he might have choked or suffocated. They stood in front of the fireplace and began to talk about other things. Their interest in the game was gone, they were tired of looking; but at the back of their minds was a secret annoyance, though at the same time a sense of great respect for the man who could conceal himself so utterly from sight. A touch of the marvellous was in it somehow.
“There’s no good hiding like that,” they felt indignantly. Still it was rather wonderful, after all. A man “like that” could do anything. He might even be up a chimney somewhere. He might be anywhere! They felt a little creepy….
“P’raps he is a sort of tiger thing,” whispered some one … and they were rather relieved when the drawing-room door opened and Mother appeared, knitting her scarlet muffler as she walked. The scene of scolding, explanation, and excuses that followed—for it was half an hour after bed-time—was cut short by Maria informing the company that she was “awfully tired,” with a sigh that meant she would like to be carried up to bed. She was carried. The procession moved slowly, Tim and Judy bringing up the rear. But while Tim talked about a water-rat he meant to kill next day with an air-gun, Judy used her eyes assiduously, still hoping to discover Cousin William crumpled up in some incredible hiding-place. They told their mother nothing. The matter was private. It was between themselves and him. It would have to be cleared up on the morrow—if they remembered. On the upper landing, however, there was a curious sound. Maria, half asleep in the maternal arms, did not hear it, apparently, but the other two children exchanged sudden, recriminating glances. A door stood ajar, and light came through it from the room within. This curious sound came with it. It was a sneeze—a regular Nindian sneeze.
“We never thought of looking there,” they said reproachfully.
Come-Back Stumper had simply gone to bed.
CHAPTER V: THE BIRTH OF WONDER
..................
MEANWHILE THEIR FATHER ALONE GREW neither older nor larger. His appearance did not change. They could not imagine that he would ever change. He still went up to London in the morning, he still came down again, he still continued to grind out stories which they thought wonderful, and he still, on occasions, said mysteriously, “A day will come,” or its variants, “Some day,” and “A day is coming.” Yet, though he had Fancy, he had not Imagination. He did not satisfy them. For while Fancy may attend the birth of Wonder, Imagination alone accompanies her growth. Daddy was too full of stationery and sealing-wax in his daily work to have got very far.
Aunt Emily also still was there, explaining everything and saying No, shaking her head at them, or holding up a warning finger. Their outward life, indeed, showed little change, but it included one important novelty that affected all their present and all their subsequent existence, too. They made a new friend—their father’s brother.
When first his visit was announced, they had their doubts about him—"your Uncle Felix” had a very questionable sound indeed, but the fact that he lived in Paris and was a writer of sea-stories and historical novels counterbalanced the handicap of the unpleasant “Felix.” For to their ears Felix was not a proper sort of name at all; it was all right for a horse or a dog or even for a town, but for a man who was also a relation it was a positive disaster. It would not shorten for one thing, and for another it reminded them of “a king, or some one in a history book,” and thus did not predispose them in his favour. It was simply what Tim called a “beastly name.” Aunt Emily, however, was responsible for their biggest prejudice against him: “You must remember not to bother him, children; you must never disturb him when he’s working.” And as Uncle Felix was coming to stay for several weeks in the Mill House, they regarded him in advance as some kind of horrible excitement they must put up with.
However, as most things in life go by contraries, this Uncle Felix person turned out just the opposite. Within an hour of his arrival he was firmly established as friend and ally, yet so quickly and easily was this adjustment brought about that no one could say exactly how it happened. They themselves said nothing—just stood and stared at him; Daddy and Mother said the expected things, and Aunt Emily, critical and explanatory as usual, found it necessary to add: “You’ll find it such a quiet house to work in, Felix, and the children will never interfere or get in your way.” She was evidently proud of her relative and his famous books. “They’ll be as good as gold—won’t you, Judy?” by which name she referred to the trio as a whole.
Whereupon Judy smiled and nodded shyly, Tim bent down and scratched his stocking, and Maria, her face expressionless, merely stared at her aunt as though she—Emily, that is—were a piece of inanimate furniture.
“I see,” said Uncle Felix carelessly, and glanced down at the trio.
That was all he said. But it was the way he said it that instantly explained his position. He looked at them and said, “I see”; no more than that—and it was done. They knew, he knew, Aunt Emily also knew. Two little careless words—and then continued to talk of Paris, the Channel crossing, and the weather.
“Didn’t he squash her just!” remarked Tim, when they were alone together. “She expected him to thank her awfully and give her a kiss.” And, accordingly, none of them were in the least surprised when he suddenly poked his head inside the door as they lay in bed and explained that he had just looked in to say good-night, and when he left them a moment later added gravely from the door: “Mind, you never disturb me, children; because, if you do—!” He shook a warning finger and was gone. He looked enormous in the doorway.
From that moment Uncle Felix became an important factor in their lives. The mysterious compact between them all was signed and sealed, yet none could say who drew it up and worded it. His duties became considerable. He almost took Daddy’s place. The Study, indeed, at certain hours of the evening, became their recognised nesting place, and Daddy was as pleased as they themselves were. He seemed relieved. He rarely ground out epics now when his brain was tired and full of Government stationery and sealing-wax. Uncle Felix held the wizard’s wand, and what he did with it was this: he raised the sense of wonder in them to a higher level. Daddy had awakened it, and fed it with specimens they could understand. But Uncle Felix poked it into yet greater activity by giving them something that no one could ever possibly understand! He stimulated it so that it worked in them spontaneously and of its own accord. He made it grow. And no amount of Aunt Emilies in the world could stop him.
Their father felt no jealousy. When the story-hour came round, he produced a set of sentences he kept slyly up his sleeve for the occasion. “Ask your Uncle Felix; he’s better at stories and things than I am. It’s his business.” This was the model
. A variation ran: “Oh, don’t bother me just now, children. I’ve got a lot of figures to digest.” But the shortest version was simply, “Run and plague your uncle. I’m too busy.”
“Try Mother” was used when Uncle Felix was in hiding. Only it had no result. Mother’s mind was too diffuse to carry conviction. It was soaked in servants and things. In another sense it was too exact. The ingredients of her stories were like a cooking recipe. Besides, hers was the unpardonable fault of never forgetting the time. On the very stroke of the clock she broke off abruptly with “Now it’s bed-time; you shall hear the rest another night.” Daddy forgot, or pleaded for “ten minutes more.” Uncle Felix, however, said flatly, “They can’t go till it’s finished"—and he meant it. His voice was deep and gruff—"like a dog’s,” according to Maria—and his laugh was like a horse’s neigh; it made the china rattle. He was “frightfully strong,” too, stronger than Weeden, for he could take a child under each arm and another on his back—and run! He never smiled when he told his stories, and, though this made them seem extra real, it also alarmed deliciously—in the terrible places. Perched on his gigantic knees, they felt “like up the cedar,” and when he stretched an arm or leg it was the great cedar branch swaying in the wind.
His manner, too, was stern to severity, and his voice was so deep sometimes that they could “feel it rumbling inside,” as though he had “swallowed the dinner gong.” He was a very important man somewhere; Daddy was just in the Stationery Office, but Uncle Felix was an author, and the very title necessarily included awe. He wrote “storical-novuls.” His name was often in the newspapers. They connected him with the “Govunment.” It had to do somewhere with the Police. No one trifled with Uncle Felix. Yet, strange to say, the children never could be properly afraid of him, although they tried very hard. Their audacity, their familiarity, their daring astonished everybody. The gardeners and coachmen, to say nothing of the indoor servants, treated him as though he was some awful emperor. But the children simply pushed him about. He might have been a friendly Newfoundland dog that wore tail-coats and walked on his hind legs, for all they feared reprisals.
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 108