It was characteristic that neither spoke a word of the late debauch. Together they went out into the hot July sunshine to gather raspberries for Johnnie’s tea. But the nets in the kitchen garden had been disarranged and the birds had got the fruit. The awful malignity of this chance event took some time to pierce through the fuddled brains of the two ladies, as they stood there grotesque and obscene in their staring pink and clashing red, with their heavy pouchy faces and bloodshot eyes showing up in the hard, clear light of the sun. But when the realization did get home it seemed to come as a confirmation of all the beliefs of persecution which had been growing throughout the drunken orgy. There is little doubt that they were both a good deal mad when they returned to the house.
Johnnie arrived punctually at four o’clock, for he was a small boy of exceptional politeness. Miss Marian opened the door to him, and he was surprised at her appearance in her red bandana and her scarlet waistcoat, and especially by her voice which, though friendly and gruff as usual, sounded thick and flat. Miss Dolly, too, looked more than usually odd with one eye closed in a kind of perpetual wink, and with her pink dress falling off her shoulders. She kept on laughing in a silly, high giggle. The shock of discovering that the raspberries were gone had driven them back to the bottle and they were both fairly drunk. They pressed upon the little boy, who was thirsty after his walk, two small glasses in succession, one of brandy, the other of gin, though in their sober mood the ladies would have died rather than have seen their little friend take strong liquor. The drink soon combined with the heat of the day and the smell of vomit that hung around the room to make Johnnie feel most strange. The walls of the room seemed to be closing in and the floor to be moving up and down like sea waves. The ladies’ faces came up at him suddenly and then receded, now Miss Dolly’s with great blobs of blue and scarlet and her eyes winking and leering, now Miss Marian’s a huge white mass with her moustache grown large and black. He was only conscious by fits and starts of what they were doing or saying. Sometimes he would hear Miss Marian speaking in a flat, slow monotone. She seemed to be reading out her father’s letters, snatches of which came to him clearly and then faded away. ‘There is so much to be done in our short sojourn on this earth, so much that may be done for good, so much for evil. Let us earnestly endeavour to keep the good steadfastly before us,’ then suddenly ‘Major Campbell has told me of his decision to leave the regiment. I pray God hourly that he may have acted in full consideration of the Higher Will to which…’, and once grotesquely, ‘Your Aunt Maud was here yesterday, she is a maddening woman and I consider it a just judgement upon the Liberal party that she should espouse its cause.’ None of these phrases meant anything to the little boy, but he was dimly conscious that Miss Marian was growing excited, for he heard her say ‘That was our father. As Shakespeare says, “He was a man take him all in all” Johnnie. We loved him, but there were those who sought to destroy him, for he was too big for them. But their day is nearly ended. Always remember that, Johnny.’ It was difficult to hear all that the elder sister said, for Miss Dolly kept on drawling and giggling in his ear about a black charmeuse evening gown she had worn, and a young donkeyboy she had danced with in the fiesta at Asti. ‘E come era bello, caro Gabriele, come era bello. And afterwards… but I must spare the ears of one so young the details of the arte dell’ amore’ she added with a giggle and then with drunken dignity ‘it would not be immodest I think to mention that his skin was like velvet. Only a few lire, too, just imagine.’ All this, too, was largely meaningless to the boy, though he remembered it in later years.
For a while he must have slept, since he remembered that later he could see and hear more clearly though his head ached terribly. Miss Dolly was seated at the piano playing a little jig and bobbing up and down like a mountainous pink blancmange, whilst Miss Marian more than ever like a pirate was dancing some sort of a hornpipe. Suddenly Miss Dolly stopped playing. ‘Shall we show him the prisoner?’ she said solemnly. ‘Head up, shoulders straight,’ said Miss Marian in a parody of her old manner, ‘you’re going to be very honoured, me lad. Promise you’ll never betray that honour. You shall see one of the enemy punished. Our father gave us close instructions “Do good to all” he said “but if you catch one of the enemy, remember you are a soldier’s daughters.” We shall obey that command.’ Meanwhile Miss Dolly had returned from the kitchen, carrying a little bird which was pecking and clawing at the net in which it had been caught and shrilling incessantly – it was a little bullfinch. ‘You’re a very beautiful little bird,’ Miss Dolly whispered, ‘with lovely soft pink feathers and pretty grey wings. But you’re a very naughty little bird too, tanto cattivo. You came and took the fruit from us which we’d kept for our darling Gabriele.’ She began feverishly to pull the rose breast feathers from the bird, which piped more loudly and squirmed. Soon little trickles of red blood ran down among the feathers. ‘Scarlet and pink a very daring combination,’ Miss Dolly cried. Johnnie watched from his chair, his heart beating fast. Suddenly Miss Marian stepped forward and holding the bird’s head she thrust a pin into its eyes. ‘We don’t like spies around here looking at what we are doing,’ she said in her flat, gruff voice. ‘When we find them we teach them a lesson so that they don’t spy on us again.’ Then she took out a little pocket knife and cut into the bird’s breast; its wings were beating more feebly now and its claws only moved spasmodically, whilst its chirping was very faint. Little yellow and white strings of entrails began to peep out from where she had cut. ‘Oh!’ cried Miss Dolly, ‘I like the lovely colours, I don’t like these worms.’ But Johnnie could bear it no longer, white and shaking he jumped from his chair and seizing the bird he threw it on the floor and then he stamped on it violently until it was nothing but a sodden crimson mass. ‘Oh, Gabriele, what have you done? You’ve spoilt all the soft, pretty colours. Why it’s nothing now, it just looks like a lump of raspberry jam. Why have you done it, Gabriele?’ cried Miss Dolly. But little Johnnie gave no answer, he had run from the room.
The Penguin Book of English Short Stories Page 35