Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on the green tablecloth.

  ‘Now then!’ said Cyril.

  But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it was quite faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it said —

  ‘Now then! Let me see the charm,’ and Anthea laid it on the green table-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look at it, then it turned them reproachfully on Anthea and said —

  ‘But there’s only half of it here!’

  This was indeed a blow.

  ‘It was all there was,’ said Anthea, with timid firmness. She knew it was not her fault. ‘There should be another piece,’ said the Psammead, ‘and a sort of pin to fasten the two together.’

  ‘Isn’t half any good?’—’Won’t it work without the other bit?’—’It cost seven-and-six.’—’Oh, bother, bother, bother!’—’Don’t be silly little idiots!’ said everyone and the Psammead altogether.

  Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it —

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Go back to the shop and see if they haven’t got the other half,’ said the Psammead. ‘I’ll go to sand till you come back. Cheer up! Even the bit you’ve got is SOME good, but it’ll be no end of a bother if you can’t find the other.’

  So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other three went to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse was very cross that Cyril was not ready too.

  The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and even before he was near enough for them to see his face there was something about the slouch of his shoulders and set of his knickerbockers and the way he dragged his boots along that showed but too plainly that his errand had been in vain.

  ‘Well?’ they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door step.

  ‘No go,’ Cyril answered; ‘the man said the thing was perfect. He said it was a Roman lady’s locket, and people shouldn’t buy curios if they didn’t know anything about arky — something or other, and that he never went back on a bargain, because it wasn’t business, and he expected his customers to act the same. He was simply nasty — that’s what he was, and I want my dinner.’

  It was plain that Cyril was not pleased.

  The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in that parlour lay like a weight of lead on everyone’s spirits. Cyril had his dinner, and just as he was swallowing the last mouthful of apple-pudding there was a scratch at the door. Anthea opened it and in walked the Psammead.

  ‘Well,’ it said, when it had heard the news, ‘things might be worse. Only you won’t be surprised if you have a few adventures before you get the other half. You want to get it, of course.’

  ‘Rather,’ was the general reply. ‘And we don’t mind adventures.’

  ‘No,’ said the Psammead, ‘I seem to remember that about you. Well, sit down and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? Right — I am glad you know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don’t intend to tell you everything twice over.’

  As the children settled themselves on the floor — it was far more comfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the Psammead, who was stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug — a sudden cold pain caught at Anthea’s heart. Father — Mother — the darling Lamb — all far away. Then a warm, comfortable feeling flowed through her. The Psammead was here, and at least half a charm, and there were to be adventures. (If you don’t know what a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I hope you never may.)

  ‘Now,’ said the Psammead cheerily, ‘you are not particularly nice, nor particularly clever, and you’re not at all good-looking. Still, you’ve saved my life — oh, when I think of that man and his pail of water! — so I’ll tell you all I know. At least, of course I can’t do that, because I know far too much. But I’ll tell you all I know about this red thing.’

  ‘Do! Do! Do! Do!’ said everyone.

  ‘Well, then,’ said the Psammead. ‘This thing is half of an Amulet that can do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the waters flow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new beautiful babies come. (Not that babies ARE beautiful, of course,’ it broke off to say, ‘but their mothers think they are — and as long as you think a thing’s true it IS true as far as you’re concerned.)’

  Robert yawned.

  The Psammead went on.

  ‘The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make people unhappy — jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness, selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amulet was made. Don’t you think it would be nice to have it?’

  ‘Very,’ said the children, quite without enthusiasm.

  ‘And it can give you strength and courage.’

  ‘That’s better,’ said Cyril.

  ‘And virtue.’

  ‘I suppose it’s nice to have that,’ said Jane, but not with much interest.

  ‘And it can give you your heart’s desire.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ said Robert.

  ‘Of course I am,’ retorted the Psammead tartly, ‘so there’s no need for you to.’

  ‘Heart’s desire is good enough for me,’ said Cyril.

  ‘Yes, but,’ Anthea ventured, ‘all that’s what the WHOLE charm can do. There’s something that the half we’ve got can win off its own bat — isn’t there?’ She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ it said; ‘the half has the power to take you anywhere you like to look for the other half.’

  This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked —

  ‘Does it know where to look?’

  The Psammead shook its head and answered, ‘I don’t think it’s likely.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then,’ said Robert, ‘we might as well look for a needle in a bottle of hay. Yes — it IS bottle, and not bundle, Father said so.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the Psammead briskly-, ‘you think you know everything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get the thing to talk.’

  ‘Can it?’ Jane questioned. Jane’s question did not mean that she thought it couldn’t, for in spite of the parlour furniture the feeling of magic was growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room like a dream of a scented fog.

  ‘Of course it can. I suppose you can read.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Everyone was rather hurt at the question.

  ‘Well, then — all you’ve got to do is to read the name that’s written on the part of the charm that you’ve got. And as soon as you say the name out loud the thing will have power to do — well, several things.’

  There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand.

  ‘There’s no name on it,’ said Cyril at last.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the Psammead; ‘what’s that?’

  ‘Oh, THAT!’ said Cyril, ‘it’s not reading. It looks like pictures of chickens and snakes and things.’

  This was what was on the charm: [Hieroglyphics omitted.]

  ‘I’ve no patience with you,’ said the Psammead; ‘if you can’t read you must find some one who can. A priest now?’

  ‘We don’t know any priests,’ said Anthea; ‘we know a clergyman — he’s called a priest in the prayer-book, you know — but he only knows Greek and Latin and Hebrew, and this isn’t any of those — I know.’

  The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily.

  ‘I wish I’d never seen you,’ it said; ‘you aren’t any more good than so many stone images. Not so much, if I’m to tell the truth. Is there no wise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the Great Ones?’

  ‘There’s a poor learned gentleman upstairs,’ said Anthea, ‘we might try him. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and iron-looking ones too — we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn’t eat enough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones and things.’

  ‘Try him,’ sa
id the Psammead, ‘only be careful. If he knows a greater name than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use. Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And then ask his aid — oh, yes, you’d better all go; you can put me to sand as you go upstairs. I must have a few minutes’ peace and quietness.’

  So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed their hair — this was Anthea’s idea — and went up to knock at the door of the ‘poor learned gentleman’, and to ‘bind him with the chains of honour and upright dealing’.

  CHAPTER 3. THE PAST

  The learned gentleman had let his dinner get quite cold. It was mutton chop, and as it lay on the plate it looked like a brown island in the middle of a frozen pond, because the grease of the gravy had become cold, and consequently white. It looked very nasty, and it was the first thing the children saw when, after knocking three times and receiving no reply, one of them ventured to turn the handle and softly to open the door. The chop was on the end of a long table that ran down one side of the room. The table had images on it and queer-shaped stones, and books. And there were glass cases fixed against the wall behind, with little strange things in them. The cases were rather like the ones you see in jewellers’ shops.

  The ‘poor learned gentleman’ was sitting at a table in the window, looking at something very small which he held in a pair of fine pincers. He had a round spy-glass sort of thing in one eye — which reminded the children of watchmakers, and also of the long snail’s eyes of the Psammead. The gentleman was very long and thin, and his long, thin boots stuck out under the other side of his table. He did not hear the door open, and the children stood hesitating. At last Robert gave the door a push, and they all started back, for in the middle of the wall that the door had hidden was a mummy-case — very, very, very big — painted in red and yellow and green and black, and the face of it seemed to look at them quite angrily.

  You know what a mummy-case is like, of course? If you don’t you had better go to the British Museum at once and find out. Anyway, it is not at all the sort of thing that you expect to meet in a top-floor front in Bloomsbury, looking as though it would like to know what business YOU had there.

  So everyone said, ‘Oh!’ rather loud, and their boots clattered as they stumbled back.

  The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said—’I beg your pardon,’ in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice — the voice of a gentleman who has been to Oxford.

  ‘It’s us that beg yours,’ said Cyril politely. ‘We are sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘Come in,’ said the gentleman, rising — with the most distinguished courtesy, Anthea told herself. ‘I am delighted to see you. Won’t you sit down? No, not there; allow me to move that papyrus.’

  He cleared a chair, and stood smiling and looking kindly through his large, round spectacles.

  ‘He treats us like grown-ups,’ whispered Robert, ‘and he doesn’t seem to know how many of us there are.’

  ‘Hush,’ said Anthea, ‘it isn’t manners to whisper. You say, Cyril — go ahead.’

  ‘We’re very sorry to disturb you,’ said Cyril politely, ‘but we did knock three times, and you didn’t say “Come in”, or “Run away now”, or that you couldn’t be bothered just now, or to come when you weren’t so busy, or any of the things people do say when you knock at doors, so we opened it. We knew you were in because we heard you sneeze while we were waiting.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the gentleman; ‘do sit down.’

  ‘He has found out there are four of us,’ said Robert, as the gentleman cleared three more chairs. He put the things off them carefully on the floor. The first chair had things like bricks that tiny, tiny birds’ feet have walked over when the bricks were soft, only the marks were in regular lines. The second chair had round things on it like very large, fat, long, pale beads. And the last chair had a pile of dusty papers on it. The children sat down.

  ‘We know you are very, very learned,’ said Cyril, ‘and we have got a charm, and we want you to read the name on it, because it isn’t in Latin or Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the languages WE know—’

  ‘A thorough knowledge of even those languages is a very fair foundation on which to build an education,’ said the gentleman politely.

  ‘Oh!’ said Cyril blushing, ‘but we only know them to look at, except Latin — and I’m only in Caesar with that.’ The gentleman took off his spectacles and laughed. His laugh sounded rusty, Cyril thought, as though it wasn’t often used.

  ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘I’m sure I beg your pardon. I think I must have been in a dream. You are the children who live downstairs, are you not? Yes. I have seen you as I have passed in and out. And you have found something that you think to be an antiquity, and you’ve brought it to show me? That was very kind. I should like to inspect it.’

  ‘I’m afraid we didn’t think about your liking to inspect it,’ said the truthful Anthea. ‘It was just for US because we wanted to know the name on it—’

  ‘Oh, yes — and, I say,’ Robert interjected, ‘you won’t think it rude of us if we ask you first, before we show it, to be bound in the what-do-you-call-it of—’

  ‘In the bonds of honour and upright dealing,’ said Anthea.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,’ said the gentleman, with gentle nervousness.

  ‘Well, it’s this way,’ said Cyril. ‘We’ve got part of a charm. And the Sammy — I mean, something told us it would work, though it’s only half a one; but it won’t work unless we can say the name that’s on it. But, of course, if you’ve got another name that can lick ours, our charm will be no go; so we want you to give us your word of honour as a gentleman — though I’m sure, now I’ve seen you, that it’s not necessary; but still I’ve promised to ask you, so we must. Will you please give us your honourable word not to say any name stronger than the name on our charm?’

  The gentleman had put on his spectacles again and was looking at Cyril through them. He now said: ‘Bless me!’ more than once, adding, ‘Who told you all this?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ said Cyril. ‘I’m very sorry, but I can’t.’

  Some faint memory of a far-off childhood must have come to the learned gentleman just then, for he smiled. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘It is some sort of game that you are engaged in? Of course! Yes! Well, I will certainly promise. Yet I wonder how you heard of the names of power?’

  ‘We can’t tell you that either,’ said Cyril; and Anthea said, ‘Here is our charm,’ and held it out.

  With politeness, but without interest, the gentleman took it. But after the first glance all his body suddenly stiffened, as a pointer’s does when he sees a partridge.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said in quite a changed voice, and carried the charm to the window. He looked at it; he turned it over. He fixed his spy-glass in his eye and looked again. No one said anything. Only Robert made a shuffling noise with his feet till Anthea nudged him to shut up. At last the learned gentleman drew a long breath.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ he asked.

  ‘We didn’t find it. We bought it at a shop. Jacob Absalom the name is — not far from Charing Cross,’ said Cyril.

  ‘We gave seven-and-sixpence for it,’ added Jane.

  ‘It is not for sale, I suppose? You do not wish to part with it?

  I ought to tell you that it is extremely valuable — extraordinarily valuable, I may say.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cyril, ‘we know that, so of course we want to keep it.’

  ‘Keep it carefully, then,’ said the gentleman impressively; ‘and if ever you should wish to part with it, may I ask you to give me the refusal of it?’

  ‘The refusal?’

  ‘I mean, do not sell it to anyone else until you have given me the opportunity of buying it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Cyril, ‘we won’t. But we don’t want to sell it. We want to make it do things.’

  ‘I suppose you can play at that as well as at anything else
,’ said the gentleman; ‘but I’m afraid the days of magic are over.’

  ‘They aren’t REALLY,’ said Anthea earnestly. ‘You’d see they aren’t if I could tell you about our last summer holidays. Only I mustn’t. Thank you very much. And can you read the name?’

  ‘Yes, I can read it.’

  ‘Will you tell it us?’ ‘The name,’ said the gentleman, ‘is Ur Hekau Setcheh.’

  ‘Ur Hekau Setcheh,’ repeated Cyril. ‘Thanks awfully. I do hope we haven’t taken up too much of your time.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the gentleman. ‘And do let me entreat you to be very, very careful of that most valuable specimen.’

  They said ‘Thank you’ in all the different polite ways they could think of, and filed out of the door and down the stairs. Anthea was last. Half-way down to the first landing she turned and ran up again.

  The door was still open, and the learned gentleman and the mummy-case were standing opposite to each other, and both looked as though they had stood like that for years.

  The gentleman started when Anthea put her hand on his arm.

  ‘I hope you won’t be cross and say it’s not my business,’ she said, ‘but do look at your chop! Don’t you think you ought to eat it? Father forgets his dinner sometimes when he’s writing, and Mother always says I ought to remind him if she’s not at home to do it herself, because it’s so bad to miss your regular meals.

  So I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind my reminding you, because you don’t seem to have anyone else to do it.’