"She kickened and fit me, she did," Tony mumbled moodily as he climbed into his cot: "Can"t I box her nor nothing?"
"Not now," Jan said, soothingly. Ayah salaamed and hurried away. She, at all events, had cause to bless Jan, for now she got her meals with fair regularity and in peace.
In a few minutes the room was as quiet as an empty church, save for a low voice that related an interminable story about "c.o.c.kie-Lockie and Henny-Penny going to tell the King the lift"s fallen," till one, at all events, of the "blawlers" was sound asleep.
The voice ceased and Tony"s head appeared over the rail of his cot.
"Hush!" Jan whispered. "Sister"s asleep. Just wait a few minutes till Ayah comes, then I"ll take you away with me."
Faithful Ayah didn"t dawdle over her food. She returned, sat down on the floor beside little Fay"s cot and started her endless mending.
Jan carried Tony away with her along the pa.s.sage and into the drawing-room. The verandah was too hot in the early afternoon.
"Now what shall we do?" she asked, with a sigh, as she sat down on the big sofa. "_I"d_ like to sleep, but I suppose you won"t let me."
Tony got off her knee and looked at her gravely.
"You can," he said, magnanimously, "because you brought me. I hate bed.
I"ll build a temple with my bricks and I won"t knock it down. Not loud."
And like his aunt he did what he said.
Jan put her feet up and lay very still. For a week now she had risen early every morning to take the children out in the freshest part of the day. She seldom got any rest in the afternoon, as she saw to it that they should be quiet to let Fay sleep, and she went late to bed because the cool nights in the verandah were the pleasant time for Fay.
Tony murmured to himself, but he made little noise with his stone bricks. And presently Jan was sleeping almost as soundly as her obstreperous niece.
Tony did not repeat new words aloud as did his sister. He turned them over in his mind and treasured some simply because he liked the sound of them.
There were two that he had carried in his memory for nearly half his life; two that had for him a mysterious fascination, a vaguely agreeable significance that he couldn"t at all explain. One was "Piccadilly" and the other "Coln St. Aldwyn"s." He didn"t even know that they were the names of places at first, but he thought they had a most beautiful sound. Gradually the fact that they were places filtered into his mind, and for Tony Piccadilly seemed particularly rural. He connected it in some way with the duck-slaying Mrs. Bond of the Baby"s Opera, a book he and Mummy used to sing from before she grew too tired and sad to sing.
Before she lay so many hours in her long chair, before the big man he called Daddie became so furtive and disturbing. Then Mummy used to tell him things about a place called Home, and though she never actually mentioned Piccadilly he had heard the word very often in a song that somebody sang in the drawing-room at Dariawarpur.
Theatricals had been towards and Mummy was acting, and people came to practise their songs with her, for not only did she sing herself delightfully, but she played accompaniments well for other people. The play was a singing play, and the a.s.sistant Superintendent of Police, a small, fair young man with next to no voice and a very clear enunciation, continually practised a song that described someone as walking "down Piccadilly with a tulip or a lily in his mediaeval hand."
Tony rather liked "mediaeval" too, but not so much as Piccadilly. A flowery way, he was sure, with real gra.s.s in it like the Resident"s garden. Besides, the "dilly" suggested "daffy-down dilly come up to town in a yellow petticoat and a green gown."
But not even Piccadilly could compete with Coln St. Aldwyn"s in Tony"s affections. There was something about that suggestive of exquisite peace and loveliness, no mosquitoes and many friendly beasts. He had only heard the word once by chance in connection with the mysterious place called Home, in some casual conversation when no one thought he was listening. He seized upon it instantly and it became a priceless possession, comforting in times of stress, soothing at all times, a sort of refuge from a real world that had lately been very puzzling for a little boy.
He was certain that at Coln St. Aldwyn"s there was a mighty forest peopled by all the nicest animals. Dogs that were ever ready to extend a welcoming paw, elephants and mild clumsy buffaloes that gave good milk to the thirsty. Little grey squirrels frolicked in the branches of the trees, and the tiny birds Mummy told him about that lived in the yew hedge at Wren"s End. Tony had himself been to Wren"s End he was told, but he was only one at the time, and beyond a feeling that he liked the name and that it was a very green place his ideas about it were hazy.
Sometimes he wished it had been called "Wren St. Endwyn"s," but after mature reflection he decided it was but a poor imitation of the real thing, so he kept the two names separate in his mind.
He had added two more names to his collection since he came to Bombay.
"Mahaluxmi," the road running beside the sea, where Peter sometimes took them and Auntie Jan for a drive after tea when it was high tide; and "Taraporevala," who owned a famous book-shop in Medow Street where he had once been in a tikka-gharri with Auntie Jan to get some books for Mummy. Peter had recommended the shop, and the name instantly seized upon Tony"s imagination and will remain with it evermore. He never for one moment connected it with the urbane gentleman in eyegla.s.ses and a funny little round hat who owned the shop. For Tony "Taraporevala" will always suggest endless vistas of halls, fitted with books, shelves, and tall stacks of books, and counters laden with piles of books. It seemed amazing to find anything so vast in such a narrow street. There was something magic about it, like the name. Tony was sure that some day when he should explore the forest of Coln St. Aldwyn he would come upon a little solid door in a great rock. A little solid door studded with heavy nails and leading to a magic cave full of unimaginable treasure.
This door should only open to the incantation of "Taraporevala." None of your "abracadabras" for him.
And just as Mummy had talked much of "Wren"s End" in happier days, so now Auntie Jan told them endless stories about it and what they would all do there when they went home. Some day, when he knew her better, he would ask her about Coln St. Aldwyn"s. He felt he didn"t know her intimately enough to do so yet, but he was gradually beginning to have some faith in her. She was a well-instructed person, too, on the whole, and she answered a straight question in a straight way.
It was one of the things Tony could never condone in the big man called Daddie, that he could never answer the simplest question. He always asked another in return, and there was derision of some sort concealed in this circuitous answer. Doubtless he meant to be pleasant and amusing--Tony was just enough to admit that--but he was, so Tony felt, profoundly mistaken in the means he sought. He took liberties, too; punching liberties that knocked the breath out of a small boy"s body without actually hurting much; and he never, never talked sense. Tony resented this. Like the Preacher, he felt there was a time to jest and a time to refrain from jesting, and it didn"t amuse him a bit to be punched and rumpled and told he was a surly little devil if he attempted to punch back. In some vague way Tony felt that it wasn"t playing the game--if it was a game. Often, too, for the past year and more, he connected the frequent disappearances of the big man with trouble for Mummy. Tony understood Hindustani as well as and better than English.
His extensive vocabulary in the former would have astonished his mother"s friends had they been able to translate, and he understood a good deal of the servants" talk. He felt no real affection for the big, tiresome man, though he admired him, his size, his good looks, and a way he had with grown-up people; but he decided quite dispa.s.sionately, on evidence and without any rancour, that the big man was a "budmash," for he, unlike Auntie Jan, never did anything he said he"d do. And when, before they left Dariawarpur, the big man entirely disappeared, Tony felt no sorrow, only some surprise that having said he was going he actually had gone. Auntie Jan never mentioned him, Mummy had reminded them both always to include him when they said their prayers, but latterly Mummy had been too tired to come to hear prayers. Auntie Jan came instead, and Tony, watching her face out of half-shut eyes, tried leaving out "bless Daddie" to see if anything happened. Sure enough something did; Auntie Jan looked startled. "Say "Bless Daddie," Tony, "and please help him.""
"To do what?" Tony asked. "Not to come back here?"
"I don"t think he"ll come back here just now," Auntie Jan said in a frightened sort of whisper, "but he needs help badly."
Tony folded his hands devoutly and said, "Bless Daddie and please help him--to stay away just now."
And low down under her breath Jan said, "Amen."
CHAPTER VI
THE SHADOW BEFORE
Jan had been a week in Bombay, and her grave anxiety about Fay was in no way lessened. Rather did it increase and intensify, for not only did her bodily strength seem to ebb from her almost visibly day by day, but her mind seemed so detached and aloof from both present and future.
It was only when Jan talked about the past, about their happy girlhood and their lovable comrade-father, that Fay seemed to take hold and understand. All that had happened before his death seemed real and vital to her. But when Jan tried to interest her in plans for the future, the voyage home, the children, the baby that was due so soon, Fay looked at her with tired, lack-l.u.s.tre eyes and seemed at once to become absent-minded and irrelevant.
She was ready enough to discuss the characters of the children, to impress upon Jan the fact that Tony was not unloving, only cautious and slow before he really gave his affection. That little Fay was exactly what she appeared on the surface--affectionate, quick, wilful, and already conscious of her own power through her charm.
"I defy anybody to quarrel with Fay when she is willing to make it up,"
her mother said. "Tony melts like wax before the warmth of her advances. She may have behaved atrociously to him five minutes before--Ayah lets her, and I am far too weak with her--but if _she_ wants to be friends Tony forgets and condones everything. Was I very naughty to you, Jan, as a baby?"
"Not that I can remember. I think you were very biddable and good."
"And you?"
Jan laughed--"There you have me. I believe I was most naughty and obstreperous, and have vivid recollections of being sent to bed for various offences. You see, Mother was far too strong and wise to spoil me as little Fay is spoilt. Father tried his best, but you remember Hannah? Could you imagine Hannah submitting for one moment to the sort of treatment that baby metes out to poor, patient Ayah every single day?"
"By the way, how is Hannah?"
"Hannah is in her hardy usual. She is going strong, and has developed all sorts of latent talent as a cook. She was with me in the furnished flat I rented till the day I left (I only took it by the month), and she"ll be with us again when we all get back to Wren"s End."
"But I thought Wren"s End was let?"
"Only till March quarter-day, and I"ve cabled to the agent not to entertain any other offer, as we want it ourselves."
"I like to think of the children at Wren"s End," Fay said dreamily.
"Don"t you like to think of yourself there, too? Would you like any other place better?"
Jan"s voice sounded constrained and a little hard. People sometimes speak crossly when they are frightened, and just then Jan felt the cold, skinny hands of some unnameable terror clutching her heart. Why did Fay always exclude herself from all plans?
They were, as usual, sitting in the verandah after dinner, and Fay"s eyes were fixed on the deeply blue expanse of sky. She hardly seemed to hear Jan, for she continued: "Do you remember the sketch Daddie did of me against the yew hedge? I"d like Tony to have that some day if you"d let him."
"Of course that picture is yours," Jan said, hastily. "We never divided the pictures when he died. Some were sold and we shared the money, but our pictures are at Wren"s End."