Sinister Street

Then together he and Nancy sauntered through what was surely the loveliest garden in the world. Michael could scarcely bear to speak, so completely did it fulfil every faintest hope. All along the red walls were apples and pears and plums and peaches; all along the paths were ma.s.ses of flowers, phloxes and early Michaelmas daisies and j.a.panese anemones and sunflowers and red-hot pokers and dahlias. The air was so golden and balmy that it seemed as though the sunlight must have been locked up in this garden for years. At the bottom of the vivid path was a stream with real fish swimming backwards and forwards, and beyond the stream, safely guarded and therefore perfectly beautiful, were cows stalking through a field beyond which was a dark wood beyond which was a high hill with a grey tower on the top of it. Some princess must have made this garden. He and Nancy turned and walked by the stream on which was actually moored a punt, a joy for to-morrow, since, explained Nancy, Maud had said they were not to go on the river this afternoon. How wonderful it was, Michael thought, to hear his dearest Miss Carthew called Maud. Never was spoken so sweet a name as Maud. He would say it to himself in bed that night, and in the morning he would wake with Maud calling to him from sleep. Then he and Nancy turned from the tempting stream and walked up a pleached alley of withies woven and interarched.

Over them September roses bloomed with fawn and ivory and copper and salmon-pink buds and blossoms. At the end of the pleached alley was a mulberry tree with a seat round its trunk and a thick lawn that ran right up to the house itself. On the lawn Nancy and Michael played quoits and bowls and chased Ambrose the spaniel, until the sun sent still more slanting shadows across the garden and it was possible to feel that night was just behind the hill beyond the stream. The sun went down. The air grew chilly and Miss Carthew appeared from the door, beckoning to Michael. She sat with him in the dusky dining-room while he ate his bread and milk, and told him of her brother the mids.h.i.+pman, while he looked pensively at the picture of the Death of Nelson. Then Michael went to the drawing-room where all the sisters and Mrs. Carthew herself were sitting. He kissed everybody good night in turn, and Mrs.

Carthew put on a pair of spectacles in order to follow his exit from the room with a kindly smile. Miss Carthew sat with him while he undressed, and when he was in bed, she told him another story and kissed him good night and blew out the candle, and before the sound of pleasant voices coming upstairs from the supper-table had ceased, Michael was fast asleep.

In the morning while he was lying watching the shadows on the ceiling, Nancy's freckled face appeared round the door.

"Hurry up and dress," she cried. "Fis.h.i.+ng!"

Michael had never dressed so quickly before. In fact when he was ready, he had to wait for Nancy who had called him before she had dressed herself. Nancy and Michael lived a lifetime of delight in that golden hour of waiting for breakfast.

However, at Cobble Place every minute was a lifetime of delight to Michael. He forgot all about everything except being happy. His embarra.s.sment with regard to the correct way of addressing May and Joan was terminated by being told to call them May and Joan. He was shown the treasures of their bedrooms, the b.u.t.terfly collections, the sword of Captain Carthew, the dirk of their brother the mids.h.i.+pman, the birds'

eggs, the fossils, the bones, the dried flowers, the photographs, the autographs, in fact everything that was most absorbing to look at. With Mrs. Carthew he took sedate walks into the village, and held the flowers while she decorated the altar in church, and sat with her while she talked to bed-ridden old women. With Nancy on one memorable day he crossed the river and disembarked on the other side and walked through the field of cows, through the meadowsweet and purple loosestrife and spearmint. Then they picked blackberries and dewberries by the edge of the wood and walked on beneath the trees without caring about trespa.s.sing or tramps or anything else. On the other side they came out at the foot of the high hill. Up they walked, up and up until they reached the grey tower at the top, and then, to Michael's amazement, Nancy produced

"Can we really go in?" asked Michael, staggered by the adventure.

"Of course. We can always get the key," said Nancy.

They walked up some winding stone steps that smelt very damp, and at the top they pushed open a trap-door and walked out on top of the tower.

Michael leaned over the parapet and for the second time beheld the world. There was no sea, but there were woods and streams and spires and fields and villages and smoke from farms. There were blue distances on every side and great white clouds moving across the sky. The winds battled against the tower and sang in Michael's ears and ruffled his hair and crimsoned his cheeks. He could see the fantail pigeons of Cobble Place circling below. He could look down on the wood and the river they had just crossed. He could see the garden and his dearest Miss Carthew walking on the lawn.

"Oh, Nancy," he said, "it's glorious."

"Yes, it is rather decent," Nancy agreed.

"I suppose that's almost all of England you can see."

"Only four counties," said Nancy carelessly. "Berks.h.i.+re and I forget the other three. We toboggan down this hill in winter. That's rather decent too."

"I'd like to come here every day," sighed Michael. "I'd like to have this tower for my very own. What castle is it called?"

"Grogg's Folly," said Nancy abruptly.

Michael wished the tower were not called Grogg's Folly, and very soon Nancy and he, shouting and laughing, were running at full speed down the hill towards Cobble Place, while the stalks of the plantains whipped his bare legs and larks flew up in alarm before his advance.

The time of his stay at Cobble Place was drawing to a close: the hour of his greatest adventure was near. It had been a visit of unspoiled enjoyment; and on his last night, Michael was allowed for a treat to stay up to supper, to sit at the round table rose-stained by the brooding lamp, while the rest of the room was a comfortable mystery in which the parlour-maid's cap and ap.r.o.n flitted whitely to and fro. Nor did Michael go to bed immediately after supper, for he actually sat grandly in the drawing-room, one of a semicircle round the autumnal fire of logs crackling and leaping with blue flames. He sat silent, listening to the pitter-pat of Mrs. Carthew's Patience and watching the halma board waiting for May to encounter Joan, while in a low voice Nancy read to him one of Fifty-two Stories of Adventure for Girls. Bed-time came at the end of the story and Michael was sad to say good night for the last time and sad to think, when he got into his ribboned bed, that to-morrow night he would be in Carlington Road among bra.s.s k.n.o.bs and Venetian blinds and lamp-posts and sounds of London. Then came a great surprize that took away nearly all the regrets he felt at leaving Cobble Place, for Miss Carthew leaned over and whispered that she was coming to live at Sixty-four.

"Oh!" Michael gasped. "With us--with Stella and me?"

Miss Carthew nodded.

"I say!" Michael whispered. "And will Stella have lessons when I'm going to school?"

"Every morning," said Miss Carthew.

"I expect you'll find her rather bad at lessons," said Michael doubtfully.

He was almost afraid that Miss Carthew might leave in despair at Stella's inept.i.tude.

"Lots of people are stupid at first," said Miss Carthew.

Michael blushed: he remembered a certain morning when capes and promontories got inextricably mixed in his mind and when Miss Carthew seemed to grow quite tired of trying to explain the difference.

"Will you teach her the piano now?" he enquired.

"Oh dear, no. I'm not clever enough to do that."

"But you teach me."

"That's different. Stella will be a great pianist one day," said Miss Carthew earnestly.

"Will she?" asked Michael incredulously. "But I don't like her to play a bit--not a bit."

"You will one day. Great musicians think she is wonderful."

Michael gave up this problem. It was another instance of the chasm between youth and age. He supposed that one day he would like Stella's playing. One day, so he had been led to suppose, he would also like fat and cabbage and going to bed. At present such a condition of mind was incomprehensible. However, Stella and the piano mattered very little in comparison with the solid fact that Miss Carthew was going to live in Carlington Road.

On the next morning before they left, Michael and Mrs. Carthew walked round the garden together, while Mrs. Carthew talked to him of the new life on which he was shortly going to enter.

"Well, Michael," she said, "in a week, so my daughter tells me, you will be going to school."

"Yes," corroborated Michael.

"Dear me," Mrs. Carthew went on. "I'm glad I'm not going to school for the first time; you won't like it at all at first, and then you'll like it very much indeed, and then you'll either go on liking it very much or you'll hate it. If you go on liking it--I mean when you're quite old--sixteen or seventeen--you'll never do anything, but if you hate it then, you'll have a chance of doing something. I'm glad my daughter Maud is going to look after you. She's a good girl."

Michael thought how extraordinary it was to hear Miss Carthew spoken of in this manner and felt shy at the prospect of having to agree verbally with Mrs. Carthew.

"Take my advice--never ask questions. Be content to make a fool of yourself once or twice, but don't ask questions. Don't answer questions either. That's worse than asking. But after all, now I'm giving advice, and worst of anything is listening to other people's advice. So pick yourself some plums and get ready, for the chaise will soon be at the door."

Nurse was very grumpy when he and Miss Carthew arrived. She did not seem at all pleased by the idea of Miss Carthew living in the house, and muttered to herself all the time. Michael did no more lessons in the week that remained before the autumn term began; but he had to go with Miss Carthew to various outfitters and try on coats and suits and generally be equipped for school. The afternoons he spent in Carlington Road, trying to pick up information about St. James' Preparatory School from the boys already there. One of these boys was Rodber, the son of a doctor, and probably by his manner and age and appearance the most important boy in the school. At any rate Michael found it difficult to believe that there could exist a boy with more right to rule than this Rodber with his haughty eye and Eton suit and prominent ears and quick authoritative voice.

"Look here," said Rodber one evening, "can you borrow your mail-cart? I saw your sister being wheeled in one this morning. We've got three mail-carts and we want a fourth for trains."

Michael ran as fast as he could back to Sixty-four, rushed down the area steps, rang the bell half a dozen times and tapped continuously on the ground gla.s.s of the back door until Cook opened it.

"Whatever's the matter?" said Cook.

Michael did not stop to answer, but ran upstairs, until breathless he reached the schoolroom.

"Please, Miss Carthew, may we have Stella's mail-cart? Rodber wants it--for trains. Do let me. Rodber's the boy I told you about who's at school. Oh, do let us have the cart. Rodber's got three, but he wants ours. May I, Miss Carthew?"

She nodded.

Michael rushed downstairs in a helter-skelter of joy and presently, with Cook's a.s.sistance in getting it up the steps, Michael stood proudly by the mail-cart which was of the dogcart pattern, very light and swift when harnessed to a good runner. Rodber examined it critically.

"Yes, that's a fairly decent one," he decided.

Michael was greatly relieved by his approval.

"Look here," said Rodber, "I don't mind telling you, as you'll be a new kid, one or two tips about school. Look here, don't tell anybody your Christian name and don't be c.o.c.ky."