by Forrest Reid
The effect was remarkable. William, seated on the wheelbarrow immediately below the window, jumped several inches. And he was very angry indeed. “What’s ailin’ you?” he snarled. “You might have more manners than to be yellin’ in people’s ears. It’s time you were learnin’ somethin’ instead of behavin’ like the young street-boys that knows no better.”
Tom apologized. “Sorry!” he said. “I was only going to ask what happened to your brothers.”
“Brothers!” William growled, stuffing his pipe back into his pocket as he got up.
“Yes, brothers, said Tom. “Your brothers. Are they dead?”
“No, They’re not dead,” returned William sourly. “Because they never was born.” And he grasped the shafts of the barrow and moved away, still muttering under his breath about manners and education.
It was like being at the theatre, for William was no sooner gone than Henry appeared on the scene silently, discreetly—stopping every few steps with one black paw lifted in the air. If ever anybody looked bursting with plots and secrets, it was Henry at that moment, and Tom watched him from his hiding place, careful not to make a sound. It was quite good sport, this. It was moreover a kind of proof that life actually did go on when you weren’t taking part in it—a truth sometimes hard to realize. Should he startle Henry the way he had startled William, or should he continue to watch him? While he hesitated Henry himself reached a decision, and instead of proceeding further sat down where he was, stuck one hind leg up in the air like a post, and began to perform a complicated toilet. Somehow this had the effect of breaking a spell. . . .
Tom turned his head quickly at a sound in the room behind him. It had been made by. a mouse, he was sure, and he didn’t want mice up here: they would run over everything, leaving tracks and nibbling holes. He rose from the floor and walked on tiptoe to the table whence the sound had come. Such a litter of stuff! He’d have to clear it all up one of these days and burn most of it. He stood contemplating the jumble. Right on top were several large sheets of white cartridge paper. He remembered bringing them up the last day Pascoe had been here, along with the scissors and The Boys’ Own Toymaker. Pascoe was good at making things—very neat and clever with his fingers—and the Toymaker gave heaps of models. You drew the outline on paper, leaving dotted lines in certain places. Then you cut out the pattern and folded it at the dotted lines and it was a house, or a windmill, or a cart, or an arm-chair, and would stand up on the table—or at least it would if Pascoe were the designer. For more complicated models you had to cut out several pieces and use gum, but this was a bother.
The scissors attracted him, being a large and special pair which Mother used for cutting out, and he was surprised that she hadn’t missed them. For Mother was as clever at making things as Pascoe, and that very summer had made Tom two pairs of white linen trousers which were just as good as if they had been bought in a shop. Now he came to think of it, it was quite possible that she had missed the scissors, for he’d borrowed them when she wasn’t there. He’d better take them down with him when he was going.
Meanwhile, they looked very sharp and efficient: in fact, in conjunction with the cartridge paper, they invited immediate use. Only he didn’t want to make toys: he’d cut out a portrait. He knew what Pascoe, who had gone shares in buying the paper, would say—that it had been bought for a special purpose and was jolly expensive and oughtn’t to be wasted. Still, Pascoe had used a sheet of it himself to make their map, so Tom felt entitled to one, and slipped a brown thumb and two fingers through the large bright rings. He had no clear image in his mind to start with, beyond a human silhouette, but if this happened to suggest a likeness to anyone he knew, it would be easy afterwards to make the necessary trimmings and alterations. It reminded him of the days when he had been quite small and had spent hours in cutting out, though then he had only been allowed to use newspapers. This was much better, for the paper didn’t bend or crumple, and the blades cut through it with a crisp sharp sound. They worked very smoothly, Tom found—almost of their own accord—and cutting out must be either a great deal easier than drawing or else he was much better at it, for something far more satisfactory than any of his pencilled efforts was emerging. It was a man, Tom already saw—an old man, he fancied—just the head and shoulders—life-size. The clear profile was really quite striking even if the rest was a bit dicky. Tom at all events was pleased with it, and resolved to keep it to show to Pascoe. He rose, placed the portrait standing against the back of the chair, and retreated a few steps to admire it.
And with that—though bafflingly, because no name suggested itself—he felt that it did remind him of someone—someone he had seen either in actual life or in a picture. But he could get no further than this, though several fugitive impressions passed through his mind. . . .
Suddenly he heard the mouse again, and this time it was actually in one of his railway tunnels. That wouldn’t do: there was probably a whole family of them, and he must set a trap. He crossed the room and clambered down the footboard with the idea of borrowing a trap from Phemie. But as he passed through the stable door into the sunlit yard , he spied exactly what he needed, in the person of Henry.
The problem was how to get Henry up into the loft. He was still seated in the middle of the yard, but he had now finished washing, and, with his back turned, appeared to be contemplating the chimney-stacks. It was going to be jolly difficult to get him up, Tom reflected, for Henry had a distrustful nature and would be deaf to coaxing. It could never be managed by the footboard. Henry would struggle like mad even if he didn’t actually use his claws. A ladder was the thing, because Tom could climb a ladder and keep at the same time a firm grip on Henry, whereas, for the footboard, he required to use both his hands. There were a couple of ladders in the shed, and the small one would do. He dragged it out and propped it up against the open window, which he could shut once he got Henry safely inside. True, there was always the other way out, and no trap-door covering it; but he didn’t think Henry could get down by the footboard.
Meanwhile, attracted by the noise, Henry had turned round and was watching him. His interest was very languid, however; nor did Tom’s “Puss, puss—poor puss!” perceptibly deepen it. It was this air of complete indifference habitual with Henry unless he himself wanted something, which Tom found so irritating. It annoyed him to be treated as if he were an inanimate object, and it removed any scruples he might have had against the employment of force. Slowly he approached Henry, and it was not till he had actually passed that he suddenly swooped down and grabbed him.
Instantly Henry was in action. His hind legs kicked against Tom’s body like powerful steel springs, his front claws dug into the sleeves of his jacket; but after one mew he struggled in silence and in vain. Up the ladder they went, Henry squeezed nearly flat under Tom’s arm, and Tom’s fingers tightly grasping the scruff of his neck. In at the window he was thrust, and the sash quickly pulled down, leaving him a prisoner till morning.
At least that was the plan when Tom slid down the ladder and stood listening. Not a sound. This seemed odd, unless Henry had fainted. “Perhaps I’ll bring you some milk later,” Tom called up, but there was no reply.
Tom still stood listening. He wished he didn’t suffer such frightful pangs of conscience every time he committed an assault on Henry, for he knew he hadn’t hurt him a bit, except possibly his feelings. All the same, this silence was surprising, for Henry had a powerful voice and it wasn’t in the least like him to submit without a protest. He could hardly have found his way down by the footboard so soon, either, though perhaps it would be better to make sure. So Tom looked inside the stable. Henry was not there. Indeed, unless he jumped it, Tom didn’t see how he was going to get down that way, and the height was about ten feet.
But perhaps Henry was keeping quiet because he had already smelt the mouse or heard it, though somehow this seemed improbable too. It would be far more in keeping with Henry’s character to allow the mouse to escape, since he ha
ted doing things under compulsion. Tom waited a few minutes longer in the hot sunshine, and then the desire to know what Henry really was up to became irresistible. Stealthily he re-climbed the ladder, and stealthily he raised his head till he could peep in.
Henry was there—yes; but what on earth was he doing? Not bothering about mice, that was clear. Actually he was walking in a sort of semicircle backwards and forwards in front of one of the chairs, and every time he brushed against it he arched his back and his tail rose stiffly in the air. Through the shut window Tom naturally heard no sound, nevertheless he could have sworn that Henry was purring. It was in fact exactly as if he were playing a kind of ceremonial game, the point of which was to pretend that somebody he liked very much was sitting in the chair. Yet the only thing in the chair was Tom’s paper man, who had fallen down, and was now lying flat on the seat.
More and more solemn and amazed Tom’s face grew, as he stared at this performance with round unblinking eyes. And then abruptly it ceased; Henry walked away from the chair and straight up to the mirror, before which he began to posture. And somehow, with this, Tom’s curiosity was satisfied; he felt he had seen enough; and without waiting for further developments scrambled down the ladder so rapidly that he was within an ace of falling.
Once safely on earth, he felt a little foolish. Suppose Pascoe had been there to witness that hasty descent! But of course if Pascoe had been there nothing would have happened. His mere presence would have prevented it. Pascoe had an effect on his surroundings very like that of a powerful arc-lamp: at the sight of him cocks crew and phantoms vanished in despair. If the worst came to the worst, Tom could always threaten Henry that he would give him to Pascoe. That would teach him! That would put an end to his magic!
Yet the rational explanation was that Henry simply had been amusing himself—with the mirror! “Mirror, mirror, on the Wall”—the wicked queen questioning her mirror in the story of Snow White—it might have looked like that, but it wasn’t really. On the other hand he rather regretted having ever begun to pretend things about Henry. It had been silly, or at least it would be silly to go on pretending. In the beginning it had been a make-up, and it just showed you that Daddy really was right about such things. Now of course he was sensible again, but even now it would have been a comfort to have known Henry as a kitten, or at least to have known somebody who had known him. In that case his advent wouldn’t have so closely resembled the arrival of the Raven—from the Night’s Plutonian shore. As it was, there seemed to Tom to be a marked resemblance, though Henry hadn’t come tapping at a window, but merely mewing to Phemie.
In the midst of these uneasy cogitations he heard the sound of the car, and next moment it came into view, with Daddy driving. Tom ran to the doors of the garage and pulled them open, while Daddy drove cautiously in, for he was not in any way a very dashing person.
“Well, what have you been up to?” Daddy asked, when the car was safely parked and he had got out of it. “And what’s the ladder doing there?” he continued, stopping to look at it. “I put it there,” Tom said. “I put Henry up in the loft because I heard a mouse.”
Daddy gazed dubiously at the window. “Are you going to keep him there?” he inquired. “He won’t like that.”
“No; I think I ought to let him out,” Tom agreed. “I think if I open the window he’ll be able to get down if he wants to. Would you mind waiting just a minute, Daddy, till I do open it?”
“Waiting!” Daddy repeated. “Why?”
You’d have thought he might have done what he was asked without questions, but he didn’t, it wasn’t his way, and Tom gave him a reproachful, not to say an indignant, glance. “I just want you to wait, that’s all,” he answered. “I nearly fell down the ladder the last time.”
Daddy seemed about to speak, and his expression was slightly puzzled, but in the end he said nothing. However, he waited—which was the main thing—while Tom climbed up and opened the window. Henry was there, meek as milk of course, and even allowed himself to be carried down perched on Tom’s shoulder.
As they crossed the yard in this fashion, Tom opened a conversation. “We had a cloudburst at school to-day,” he told Daddy. “Did you have one?”
“I saw a flash of lightning,” Daddy said, “and I heard a peal of thunder. But that was all.”
“And Brown stood up on the form and flapped his arms and called out like a bird,” Tom continued. “He did it because of the electric currents.”
“The electric currents?” Daddy murmured, apparently not grasping the connection. “You mean he gave himself an electric shock?”
“No—the electric currents in the air,” Tom explained. “Miss Jimpson said it was that.”
“I see,” said Daddy, but Tom was quite sure he didn’t see and wasn’t even trying to see.
“I had tea with Miss Jimpson at Nicholson's,” he went on.
“That was nice,” Daddy said. “And very kind of her. Had you managed by any chance to get a sum right, do you suppose?”
“No,” Tom replied; “she just asked me—socially.”
“Oh, socially!” Daddy echoed. “Well, I want to speak to William before he goes, and I think you’d better clean yourself up a bit. You look as if you’d been rolling in the dust.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DADDY WAS writing a letter; Mother was darning socks; Tom sat at the other side of the table over his lessons. In spite of the array of books, he was not doing very much, she noticed. He was not even looking at them, but was sitting with his head slightly on one side, which showed that he was thinking. Mother paused in her work to watch him. He looked pale; he looked tired; she was glad that the holidays were so near. A plain little boy, she supposed most people would call him—at any rate stupid people. Perhaps he was plain, with his freckles, his blunt features, his dull leaf-brown hair that needed cutting. And in his eyes was a listening expression, not unhappy exactly, yet extraordinarily sad.
She had seen it before, only somehow never before had it so struck her. Why should he look like that? He wasn’t unhappy. He was different, she knew, from the ordinary run of small boys—perhaps even more different than she thought—but she knew he was happy, he had everything to make him happy, and that expression didn’t mean what it seemed to mean. Suddenly she told him: “I think you’d much better put away your lesson books and go to bed.”
Tom did not answer. He didn’t want to go to bed, though he was very tired, and his eyes were heavy, and he didn’t feel very well. He tried to persuade himself that he didn’t feel ill either—just vaguely uncomfortable and headachy—symptoms which had become much more marked after dinner, but which had been hovering in the background all day. He braced himself to look more lively, and Mother repeated her words.
“It’s only half-past eight,” Tom mumbled, turning a page. He knew this didn’t deceive her, but he hated admitting that he wasn’t well. It seemed so silly, besides leading to all kinds of fuss and questions, and he’d be all right in the morning.
“You hardly touched your dinner,” Mother continued. “And you know you’re not really working now. I expect it’s the heat, or Miss Jimpson’s ices, that have upset you.”
Daddy, who in the ordinary way would have noticed nothing, of course at this began to gaze at him too. “Do you hear what your mother says?” he asked.
The question annoyed Tom, for naturally he had heard what Mother had said; he wasn’t deaf. But this irritability was only another symptom, and he swallowed, it down and answered in a subdued voice: “The exams begin in a day or two.”
“There won’t be any exams if you’re ill,” Mother remarked quietly.
That was nonsense, he could have pointed out. Still, he knew what she meant, and his mind, refusing the effort of concentration on his work, sought relief in pondering over the difficulty of saying anything which was not at the same time both true and untrue. Mother’s statement was untrue, because there certainly would be exams whether he took part in them or not; yet in anoth
er way it was true, because there would be no exams for him if he were in bed. Similarly Henry, now lying curled up asleep on the sofa, would be speaking the truth if he said that mice were delicious; yet if Daddy were to say “Mice are delicious”, they would all not only disbelieve him but get a most frightful shock into the bargain. No sooner had this example arisen in Tom’s mind than it passed from the abstract to the concrete, and an unpleasant picture was conjured up of Daddy crouching over mouseholes, quivering and silent, with eyes floating and shining with greed. . . . He sighed and pushed away his book. “It’s because it’s so hot and stuffy,” he said petulantly. “I wish I could sleep out in the garden in the summer-house.”