Short Stories for Children

by Walter De la Mare

  Topsy and Emmanuel however stayed wide awake, sucking their pear-drops (because Mrs Bumps had thought the seats too dear for bull’s-eyes), and whispering and chattering and watching everything that went on. They had never in all their lives seen so many fine ladies with bare shoulders, and diamonds in their hair, or so many gentlemen in long black coats and tall collars.

  One by one the members of the band, some carrying their instruments, came edging their way to their seats in front of the stage, and began to tune up or softly tootle on their oboes and trombones. The drummer too thumped softly on his drums, but not on his triangle or cymbals. And last came the conductor with his ivory wand.

  ‘What’s that for?’ chirped Emmanuel.

  ‘That,’ said Mrs Bumps, ‘is to do the music with.’

  The conductor sat down on his little velvet seat and waited.

  Mr Bumps took out his silver watch. ‘Sharp on the hour,’ he whispered to Mrs Bumps; ‘I wonder what they are waiting for.’

  He had no need to wonder long. For suddenly at a signal the conductor with white-gloved hand lifted his wand, and to a crash of music that nearly startled poor little Kate out of her wits, everybody in the theatre stood up and the band played the National Anthem. Sure enough, in a moment or two there came into a great box beside the stage which had been trimmed up with holly and mistletoe, first the King of England himself, then the Queen, then their son, the Prince of Wales, and then a little foreign princess with black ringlets and a tiny fan. They were followed by a few nice-looking but splendid ladies and gentlemen; and the King stood in front of the box, in the middle of it, while the anthem went on.

  ‘That’s the King,’ whispered Mr Bumps to Emmanuel.

  ‘And that’s the Queen,’ said Mrs Bumps. ‘And there, see, Topsy, see, Manny, see, Kitty, that’s the Prince of Wales!’

  It was a long time before little Kate could see at all, she had been so dead asleep. When the last note had been played, they all five cheered as loud as they could, and so did the other people in the theatre. The King bowed. They cheered again. Then he sat down; and slowly, quietly, in heavy folds, the curtain ascended and the performance began.

  First came acrobats, in tights and spangles. Next came a juggler and his small daughter. It looked as if the balls and hoops and dinner-plates they juggled with were things alive. After the juggling there came a man who sang The Bay of Biscay, though Mr Bumps knew a good deal more about the Bay than he did. And after him the five silent-footed Ethiopian Elephants debouched one after the other on to the stage.

  At sight of them, though the three children opened their mouths like O’s and clapped till it hurt, Mr Bumps himself could scarcely breathe. But not, of course, because he had never seen elephants before. Far from that. He had seen quantities of elephants – either walking about, wild and tranquil, in the black man’s swamps in Africa, or lying caked with mud in the heat of the tropic sun, or fountaining one another with cascades of silvery water at the close of day. And even though these Five did clever tricks, he had watched others at far more useful ones in their own country. Not that he despised the elephants, he was only used to them.

  No; Mr Bumps was waiting for Dr Jasper and could scarcely endure the delay. He was waiting for Dr Jasper in his ‘Grand New Act’ – as the play-bills said, an act ‘especially invented for the August Amusement of Royalty; and patronized by the Shah of Persia, the Emperor of Abyssinia, and other all-powerful Potentates’. And he knew now that before he could count fifty it would begin.

  The huge ponderous beasts, having bowed, kneeling in their green and silver, to express their thanks for the applause, were shuffling off towards the back of the stage. There, as the lights dimmed, they stood in a row, their trunks uplifted above their heads. There came a pause; and then a slender shaft of pearly light struck down from on high towards the wings. A sudden shawm-like trumpeting broke out from the elephants’ throats, a trumpeting loud enough to drown the strains of twenty orchestras.

  And into the beam of light – it moving with him as he went – there came tripping softly forward – a trailing cloak of crimson velvet edged with gold lace upon his shoulders, a tall cap of sable surmounted by a plume of aracatan feathers pinned with a diamond in front of it upon his head, a little silver-gilt sceptre in his right hand – Jasper. No longer now a medico of fashion, prescribing pills for the Countess of Crumpet, but himself Almighty Emperor of All the Ethiopians, the All-Excellent Ammanabi Nana Dah.

  Following in his train came two small fuzz-wigged pygmy blackamoors in ostrich feathers and in robes of silk – of yellow and vermilion. One of these was carrying the Emperor’s royal sunshade, and the other (for it was very light in weight) his gilded throne. And these were followed by Signor Antonio (Mr Smith), no longer either a manservant or a countess, but one of the Emperor’s tallest and lankiest wives!

  When the trumpeting of the elephants had died down and the cymbals and drums had ceased to sound, there went up such a roar of voices in the theatre from the people in it that it was heard outside for half a mile in all directions. Even the King of England, seated smiling in his Royal Box, could not remember to have been greeted with a louder Huzza. And then, almost as if this prodigious noise itself had caused it, an utter quiet fell. The Emperor, having gathered his crimson skirts around him, his scarlet sunshade like a huge mushroom over his head, had taken his seat upon his throne. The royal twelve-whiskered leopard-skins had been laid about his feet.

  He sat there a moment – small, upright – perfectly still, and looked on them all. Not a tongue wagged, not a sigh or a cough sounded in all the theatre. The only stir, and no one noticed it, was that little Kate, who had never before seen such things or anything like them, ducked down her head out of sight of the stage and hid her face in her mother’s lap.

  The Emperor Jasper looked around him. He was accustomed now to the glare and the sea of faces, and the plaudits and the laughter. He knew where he was, and he knew too – though he himself alone could tell it – who and what he was. And perhaps for this reason, as he sat there peering out of his splendour, the host of those who were looking at him felt a peculiar coldness stealing into their blood.

  It was not only as if they were uneasy in his presence – the tiny motionless head, the intent eyes – but also as if they were frightened. Even the Queen, in her disquiet, glanced sidelong at the King, but the King was looking at the Emperor. And the Emperor at this moment, having very gently lifted his minute left hand, had opened his lips to speak …

  Perhaps if Mr Bumps had thought all this over for a moment or two he would have remained quietly seated with his family in the front row of the Upper Circle and would have said nothing. He would have waited till the end of the performance, and then found his way round to the Stage Door, and sent in to the Manager his card – his visiting card – which he had had printed when he was made first-mate of The Old Lion: Mr John Bumps, First-Mate of THE OLD LION, 7 The Transoms, Portsmouth. That would have been the right thing to do. But Mr Bumps, being a seaman and not used to holding himself back when anything that needed doing was to be done, couldn’t wait to think.

  Out loud, the only sound in the theatre, except that the Emperor having opened his lips had said, ‘WE’, he called ‘Jasper! …’ And as if on one hinge every face in the theatre and every face even in the Royal Box had turned round to look at him. Moreover the puny Emperor on the stage in his gold and crimson finery had said not a syllable after that first clear ‘We’ – which he had pronounced as if it were spelt Oo-ee – but had looked at him too. All else then but rapture had vanished out of his mind. And, in the twinkling of an eye, without the least haste, or word, or sound, or nod, he had risen from his throne, and was softly pattering towards the footlights, or rather to the side of the footlights opposite the Royal Box.

  Now the stage was framed in, top and sides, with a shimmering arch of carved wood and painted plaster. All kinds of knobbly fruits and flowers and little cupids and ribbons and dolphins and bird
s adorned it, glistening bright with gilt and colours. It was behind this arch that the curtain rolled down, and the Fortune was one of the handsomest theatres in London.

  In all that quiet, then, slowly and without haste, Jasper began to climb this arch, his royal robes swinging free behind him. They were heavy with their gold lace, and he climbed slowly. But he climbed nonetheless surely, on and on, and up and up, and watched by every eye, until he had reached to where Mr Bumps’s gallery began. Here there ran a low wooden wall to keep the people from falling out of the gallery. Those in the front row of this gallery sat in their seats with their knees bent, looking over this low wall at the stage, and – to make it comfortable for their elbows as well as to look nice – the top of it had been padded with horsehair and covered with a maroon-coloured stuff called plush.

  So it was with no sound at all from his small five-toed feet that Jasper came – hastening, now – alone along this wall in front of the people seated there, their faces in the reflected glow of the footlights looking as white as china. Straight along this dizzy path he silently tippeted until he reached the place where Mr Bumps was sitting. There he stopped. He looked at Mr Bumps and bowed his head. Then he said something that few heard and nobody understood. He put out his hands towards Mr Bumps. And the two friends were restored to one another.

  Now all this time the people had sat perfectly still, watching. But when they witnessed what had happened – and these two there, Jasper and Mr Bumps – though they didn’t really know what to say or think, they all began to talk, and some to shout, even to hoot. They were angry. They were being cheated. This was not what they had paid all that money to see! Poor Mrs Bumps could even hear what those near by were saying. She was growing more and more hot and discomfited. ‘Oh, John! Oh, John!’ she kept repeating.

  And now the Manager, whom Jasper had come to like even less and less as his nights had gone by, appeared, marching on to the stage. He bowed to the King, he bowed to the Queen, he bowed to the Prince of Wales, and he called out in a loud voice that he was very sorry for what had happened. He said he was very sorry to them all. He said that he had paid pounds and pounds of money for Jasper to come and amuse them, and now here was this man up there enticing him away. He bawled out, ‘Emperor Jasper, Emperor Jasper, come down, sir!’

  Then some voices in the back parts of the theatre shouted, ‘Turn him out!’ and a great clamour began, some yelling this and some that, and the Manager standing alone, fat and black and helpless in the middle of the stage, cajoling in vain Jasper to come back. As for Mr Smith – since he was dressed up as one of the Emperor’s wives, and was a born actor, he felt that it was not his place to speak; especially before Royalty. His eyes rolled in his black-dyed face, but he said nothing.

  Meanwhile, safe with his Mr Bumps again, Jasper had made not the faintest sign that he had even heard the Manager’s call. And now, louder and louder, many voices were shouting, ‘Send him back!’ and some were bellowing, ‘Let him stay!’ and the uproar grew worse and worse.

  At last the King himself stood up in the Royal Box and raised his hand. There was at once a great hush in the theatre. Everybody fell silent. The King said, ‘Whose monkey is this marvel?’

  With a frowning countenance he looked down upon the Manager. And the Manager answered not a word. Then the King turned his eyes towards Mr Bumps. He said, ‘Let that man stand up.’

  And Mr Bumps stood up.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the King.

  ‘I am John Bumps, may it please your Majesty,’ said Mr Bumps simply. ‘First-mate of The Old Lion, now lying at Portsmouth.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said the King.

  ‘I came, your Majesty – and this is Mrs Bumps beside me with the children – I came in hopes of seeing an old friend again.’

  ‘Who?’ said the King.

  Mrs Bumps was now clutching tight her husband’s hand, since it was hidden by the plush-topped wooden wall. His voice faltered. He touched with his other hand Jasper’s sable cap.

  ‘This, sir,’ he said.

  ‘You mean,’ said the King, smiling, ‘his Serene Mightiness, the All-Excellent Ammanabi Nana Dah? Beseech his Mightiness to stand forth.’

  This good-humour of the King greatly pleased all the people present, and every eye was now fixed on Mr Bumps.

  ‘Now, Jasper,’ whispered he, ‘the King of England is speaking to ’ee.’

  Jasper blinked but once at his old friend, pressed the finger clasped tight in his hand, and stood up on the plush parapet, before them all.

  And the King, his eye twinkling, said, ‘Is it your wish, cousin, that you remain with our loyal subject, Mr Bumps, or’ – and he swept his hand towards the Manager and the footlights.

  An instant’s silence followed.

  And then, ‘Thissee Misster Bumpss, ssir,’ piped Jasper, for he had never quite mastered his s’s, ‘thissee Misster Bumpss, ssir, iss my firsst friend. Mr Ssmith iss my o-ther friend. My firsst iss…’ But the next word which was firsst was almost drowned by the shout of delight from a thousand throats that went up to the roof of the theatre like the roar of an avalanche. It was fortunate for the Manager that he had already left the stage and gone into the back parts of the theatre.

  And then and there Mr Bumps and Mrs Bumps and the three children and Jasper were conducted down to the Royal Box and were presented to His Majesty. And first the King and then the Queen and then the Prince of Wales and then the little foreign princess shook hands with Jasper, and he spoke to them. And the King slipped a ring off his own finger and hung it round the neck of the Ethiopian Emperor. They met, one might say, as equals.

  But Mr Bumps being a sailor and an honest man, when the theatre was empty and the lights were out and the people gone away, sat down in a little back room behind the stage with the Manager and Mr and Mrs Smith, while Mrs Bumps and the children waited for them in Jasper’s dressing-room. Here, the four of them, over a bottle of port wine, made a bargain together, so that the Manager should not lose too much money. The bargain was that for the whole of the next three days, except when it was time for Dinner or Tea, Jasper should sit on the stage of the Fortune in his gold and crimson, the King’s ring dangling round his neck, his cap of sable on his head, while every man, woman or child who wished and could pay to see him, passed along – in at one door and out at another – before his throne. And of the cash they might take at the doors, it was agreed that the Manager should keep half, Mr Smith a quarter, and Jasper a quarter. Mr Bumps would take nothing. In those three days the Manager made more profit than he had ever made before in a whole month!

  When the three days were over, Mr Bumps’s leave from his ship was over too, and they all went down to Portsmouth. By the kindness of the captain of The Old Lion, it had been arranged that Jasper should come aboard – it was his wish – and return to Africa. He might, if he had so chosen, have stayed in England and lived in a palace for the rest of his life. His fame had run like wildfire through the Kingdom, and far beyond it. Telegrams had come from Paris and Rome and Vienna and Budapest, and all parts of America, entreating him to visit them.

  Apart from telegrams, the postman brought Jasper a small sack of letters every morning – from old ladies in the country who wished to adopt him, from learned professors of Oxford and Cambridge who wished to share his wisdom, from cunning men who hoped to make money out of him, and from all kinds of people grown-up and otherwise who asked him to put his name in their birthday books. And the King did not forget him. But Jasper refused everything – except the birthday books; he pined only for home.

  In the meantime he himself made many presents to all his friends, and especially to little Kate, according to what he thought they would like best. The rest of his money – after he had said good-bye to Mr Johnson – had been packed in the cellar at the Bank into twenty-eight small chests or coffers. These were piled up in the cabin that had been prepared for him on The Old Lion. And a nice pile they made.

  Besides this, with
the captain’s consent, Jasper and Mr and Mrs Bumps had bought a large quantity of all kinds of trinkets, toys, linen and silk, dainties and beverages that would not rust or tarnish or go bad upon the voyage, whatever weather they might encounter. Jasper had thought of everything that his own people round about Dondo might fancy and enjoy. And the King had commanded that on this voyage The Old Lion should fly not the red ensign but at the main truck the Royal Standard.

  A crowd of people so vast thronged the quay and the windows and the roofs of the houses near by to see Jasper off that some of those in the front row were tumbled into the water. All except one had nothing worse than a sousing and were picked up by row-boats. But the Manager unfortunately, who had pushed past some small boys for a better view, was drowned.

  The best brass band in Portsmouth played Rule Britannia, and to the strains of Rio Grande the men of The Old Lion weighed anchor.

  Oh say, were you ever in Rio Grande? –

  Awa-ay, Rio!

  It’s there that the rivers run down golden sand –

  And we’re bound for the Rio Grande.

  And awa-ay, Rio! – away, Rio!

  Sing, fare you well, my bonny young gal,

  We’re bound for the Rio Grande!

  She shook, she stirred. Softly a gentle breeze between the blue sky and the sparkling water bellied out the sails of the ship. She drew away upon the water, past No Man’s Land Fort, where a gun puffed out to greet her, and smalled more and more. By the time Mrs Bumps and the three children sat down to tea, she was out of sight of land.

  Mr Bumps had many a quiet and private talk with Jasper in his cabin as the days went by. Never had the old ship seen fairer weather. The two friends were sad at heart, for Mr Bumps knew that nothing he could say now would dissuade Jasper from returning to his own people. That, Jasper assured him, as well as what words he had could do so, was his one wish; and Mr Bumps could say no more.