Sinister Street

Michael, when he saw the programme of his work, felt much depressed. It seemed to lack variety and he was not very much cheered up to hear that at meals only French would be spoken. Those meals were dreadful. At first Nurse and Stella were present, but when Nanny found that Madame wanted to teach Stella the French for knife and fork, she declined to have dinner downstairs any longer, and Michael and Madame Flauve were left to dine tete-a-tete on dull food and a languis.h.i.+ng conversation.

"Madam indeed," Nurse would sniff, when the governess had left after tea, "I never heard of such a thing in all my life. Madam! A fine Madam!"

"What an imperence," agreed Mrs. Frith. "Fancy, a ordinary volgar thing like that to go calling herself Madam, whatever shall we come to?"

"It does seem a cheek, don't it?" said Annie.

"I never!" Cook gasped. "I never! Madam! Well, I could almost laugh at the sauce of it. And all that cleaning as you might say for a person as isn't a sc.r.a.p better than you and me."

"Oh, I've written to Mrs. Fane," said Nurse. "I said there must be some mistake been made. Oh, yes, a mistake--must be a mistake."

Michael did not much enjoy the walks with his governess. He was always taken to a second-hand furniture-shop in the Hammersmith Road, not a pleasant old furniture-shop with Toby mugs and stuffed birds and coins; but a barrack full of red was.h.i.+ng-stands and white-handled chests of drawers. Madame Flauve informed him that she was engaged in furnis.h.i.+ng at that moment, and would immediately show him a locket with the portrait of her husband inset. Michael could not gain any clear idea of what M. Flauve was like, since all that remained was a nebulous profile smothered by a very black moustache. Madame Flauve told him that M.

Flauve was 'tout-a-fait charmant, mais charmant, mon pet.i.t. Il etait si aimable, si gentil et d'un cur tres tres bon.' Michael grew very tired of being jostled outside the furniture-shop every afternoon, while his governess grubbed around the ugly furniture and argued with the man about the prices. The only article she ever bought was a commode, which so violently embarra.s.sed Michael that he blushed the whole way home. But Madame Flauve often made him blush and would comment upon subjects not generally mentioned except by Mrs. Frith, and even by her only in a spirit of hearty coa.r.s.eness that did not make Michael feel ashamed like this Frenchwoman's suggestion of the nasty. He was on one occasion very much disgusted by her remarks on the inside of an egg that was slightly set. Yet while he was disgusted, his curiosity was stimulated by the information imparted, and he made further enquiries from Nurse that evening. Nanny was horrified, and said plainly that she considered this governess no better than a low beast and that she should write accordingly to Mrs. Fane.

After a month or two Michael was sent back to school in the morning, though the afternoon walks still continued for a time. When Michael returned to the Misses Marrow, he was promoted to the cla.s.s above the Kindergarten and was set to learn the elements of Latin in a desultory and unpractical way, that is to say he was made to learn--

Nominative, mensa, a table Vocative, mensa, O table Accusative, mensam, a table

and the rest of the unintelligible rigmarole. He had no clear notion what Latin was, and so far as he could make out n.o.body else at the Miss Marrows' school had any clearer notion. Indeed, the only distinct addition to his knowledge of life was gained from Vernon Brown who with great ingenuity had hollowed out a cork and by the insertion of several pins in the front had made of it a miniature cage in which he kept a fly. All the other boys were much impressed by Vernon Brown's achievement, and very soon they all came to school with flies captive in excavated corks. Michael longed to be like these bigger boys and pined for a cage. One day Edward Arnott gave him one, and all the rest of that day Michael watched the fly trying to escape. When he showed it to Madame Flauve, she professed herself shocked by the cruelty of it and begged him to release the fly, a.s.serting that she would find him a subst.i.tute which would deceive all the other boys. Michael agreed to release his captive and the long-imprisoned fly walked painfully out of his cell. Then Madame Flauve chipped off a little piece of coal and tied it round with one of her own hairs and showed Michael how by cunningly twisting this hair, the coal would gain the appearance of mobility.

Michael was doubtful at first, but Madame's exaggerated encouragement led him to suppose that it was safe to practise the deception on his companions. So on the next day he proceeded to exhibit his 'fly.' But everybody knew it was coal and jeered at Michael and made him very unhappy and anxious never again to attempt to differentiate himself or his actions from the rest of mankind.

Michael's mother came home towards the end of July, and Madame Flauve vanished to her husband and house and furniture. Michael did not regret her. Mrs. Fane asked him many questions and particularly she wanted to know if he was perfectly happy. Michael said 'yes,' and his mother seemed satisfied. She was now very much taken up with Stella, who was a lovely little girl with grey eyes and light brown glinting hair. Michael did not exactly feel jealous of his sister, but he had an emotion of disappointment that no longer could he be alone with his mother in a fragrant intimacy from which the perpetually sleeping Stella was excluded. Now Stella no longer slept all the time, but, on the contrary, was very much awake and very eager to be entertained. Michael also felt a twinge of regret that Stella should be able out of her own self to entertain grown-up people. He wished that he could compose these wonderful, endless songs of hers. He could not but admit that they were wonderful, and exactly like real poetry. To be sure their subjects were ordinary enough. There was no magic in them. Stella would simply sing of getting up in the morning and of the morning bath and the towel and the bread and milk for breakfast. She would sing, too, of the ride in the perambulator and of the ladies who paid her compliments as she pa.s.sed.

It was a little galling to Michael that he, so long his mother's only companion, should have to share her love with such an insidious rival.

Curious men with long hair came to the house, apparently just to see Stella; for they took no notice at all of Michael. These long-haired visitors would sit round in the drawing-room, while Stella played at the piano pieces that were not half so hummable as those which Michael had already learned to play in violent allegretto. Stella would sit upright in her starchiest frock and widest sash and play without any music a long and boring noise that made Michael feel very fidgety. He would endure it for a while and then he would have to go out of the room. The first time he had done this he had expected somehow that people would run after him to bring him back. But n.o.body moved. Everyone was intent upon Stella and her noise. They were all grunting and clearing their throats and making unintelligible exclamations. Michael was glad that they had begun to build houses in the waste ground opposite. It was better to watch men climbing up ladders and walking over planks and messing with lumps of mortar than to sit there among those guttural men in an atmosphere of Stella wors.h.i.+p. He felt sometimes that he would like to pinch Stella's legs--they looked so sleek and well-behaved, as she sat there playing the piano. Michael was never invited to play on the drawing-room piano. He was only allowed to play up in the day-nursery, with merely the ambition of one day being able to reach the pedals to stir him on.

"Ach, Mrs. Vane," he heard these long-haired men declare. "Your daughter is wonderful. Ach! Ach! Ach! She is a genius. She will be the great bianist of the new generation. Ach! Ach! Ach!"

Michael began to feel that his love for his mother or her love for him did not matter. He began to feel that only what he himself thought and wanted did matter; and when she went away again he

The withdrawal of Madame Flauve from the superintendence of Michael's afternoon walks was apparently a great blow to Nurse. She had acquired a habit either of retiring to the night-nursery or of popping out of the back-door on secret errands. Stella in the charge of Annie was perfectly happy upstairs, and Nurse resented very strongly Michael's enquiries as to where she was going. Michael had no ulterior reasons for his questions. He was sincerely interested by these afternoon walks of Nurse, and speculated often upon her destination. She would always return very cheerful and would often bring him home small presents--a dark blue bird on a pin at boat-race time (for Nurse was staunchly Oxford), a penny packet of stamps most of which were duplicates inside, penny ill.u.s.trated books of c.o.c.k Robin or Tom Thumb; and once she brought him home a Night Companion. This Night Companion was a club-headed stick, very powerful and warranted to secure the owner from a murderous attack. It was one of a row in the window of a neighbouring umbrella-shop, a long row of Night Companions that cost one s.h.i.+lling each. Michael liked his stick and took it to bed with him and was comforted, when he woke up, by the sight of its knotted head upon the bolster. He grew very intimate with the stick and endowed it with character and temperament and humanity. He would often stare at the still unpurchased Night Companions in the shop, trying to discover if any other of them were so beneficent and so pleasant a companion as his own. In time he took a fancy to another, and begged Nurse to be allowed to buy this for Stella. Nurse was gratified by his appreciation of her present and gave him leave to break into the ten-s.h.i.+lling piece to endow Stella with a Companion. Michael himself carried it home, wrapped in a flimsy brown paper and tied up as he thought unnecessarily with a flimsy string. Stella was told to take it to bed with her and did so, but by some accident grazed her forehead on the Night Companion's knotty head and cried so much that it was taken away from her. This was all the better for Michael who thenceforth had two Night Companions--one on either side of him to guard him from the door and the window.

Still, notwithstanding these presents, Nurse grew more and more irritable to find Michael watching her exits from and entrances into 64 Carlington Road. Once, she was so much annoyed to see Michael's face pressed against the pane of the morning-room window that she slid all the way down the area-steps and sent Michael to bed as a punishment for peeping. At last she decided that Michael must go for walks by himself and lest he should be lost or get into mischief, every walk must be in the same direction, along the same road to the same place and back. He was to walk up Carlington Road into the Hammersmith Road and along the Kensington Road as far as the Earl's Court Road. Here he was to stop and turn round and walk back to Carlington Road on his traces.

Michael detested this walk. He would stump up the area-steps, watched by Nurse, and he would walk steadily, looking neither to the right nor to the left according to orders, as far as 44 Carlington Road. Here in the morning-room window was a small aquarium, sadly mobile with half a dozen pale goldfish, that Michael would be compelled to watch for a few seconds before he turned round and acknowledged the fact that Nurse was flicking him on with her hand. Michael would proceed past the other houses until he came to 22 Carlington Road, where a break occurred, caused by a house entirely different from any of the others, at the side of which was a huge double door. This was sometimes open, and inside could be seen men hammering with chisels at enormous statues including representations of Queen Victoria and of a benignant lion. Next to this house was a post office, not an ordinary post office where stamps could be bought, but a harum-scarum place, full of postmen running up and down and emptying bags and hammering on letters and talking very loudly and very quickly. By this office Carlington Road made an abrupt rectangular turn past a tumble-down tarred fence, through whose interstices could be seen a shadowy garden full of very long pale gra.s.s and of trees with jet-black trunks. Beyond the trees was a tumble-down house with big bare windows glinting amongst the ivy. After this Carlington Road went on again with smaller houses of a deeper red brick than those in the part where Michael lived. They had no bas.e.m.e.nts, and one could see into their dining-rooms, so close were they to the road. When 2 Carlington Road was reached a tall advertis.e.m.e.nt h.o.a.rding began, and for a hundred yards the walk became absolutely interesting. Then Carlington Mansions rose majestic, and Michael, who had been told that they were flats and had heard people wondering at this strange new method of existence, loitered for a moment in order to watch a man in a uniform, sitting on a wooden chair and reading a pink newspaper. He also read the names of people who were either out or in, and settled, when he was older, to live in a flat in the security of many other families and a man in a green uniform. The roar of the Hammersmith Road burst upon him, and dreams were over for a while, as he hurried along past eight shops, at none of which he would dare to look since he read in a book of a boy who had been taken off to the police station on a charge of theft, though he was actually as innocent as Michael himself and was merely interested by the contents of a shop window. The next turning to Carlington Road was a queer terrace, very quiet except that it overlooked the railway, very quiet and melancholy and somehow wicked. Nothing ever turned down here except an occasional dog or cat; no servants stood gossiping by area-gates, and at the end of it loomed the tumble-down house whose garden Michael had already seen near the post office. He used to think as he left Padua Terrace behind him that one day for a great adventure he would like to walk along under its elm-trees to discover if anyone did live in those dark houses; but he never managed to be brave enough to do so. Michael now crossed the railway bridge and looked at the advertis.e.m.e.nts: then followed a dull line of iron railings with rusty pineapples on top of each of them. These were bounded at each end by gates that were marked 'Private. No Thoroughfare,' and after the second gate came the first crossing. Michael had been told to be very careful of crossings, and he used to poise himself on the kerb for a moment to see if any carts were near. If none were even in sight, he used to run across as quickly as he could. There were three other crossings before Earl's Court Road was reached, and one of them was so wide that he was very glad indeed when it was put behind him. All the way, terrace after terrace of grim houses, set back from the high road behind shrubberies, had to be pa.s.sed, and all the way Michael used to hum to himself for company and diversion and encouragement. The only interesting event was a pavement-artist, and he was very often not there. It was an exasperating and monotonous walk, and he hated it for the gloom it shed upon all his afternoons.

Sometimes Michael would arrive home before Nanny, and then he would have to endure a long cross-examination upon his route. The walk was not sufficiently interesting to invent tales about, and he resented Nurse's incredulous att.i.tude and wrinkled obstinate face. Indeed, Michael began to resent Nurse altogether, and so far as he was able he avoided her.

His scheme of things was logical: he had already a philosophy, and his conception of the wonder inherent in everything was evidently not unique, because the pictures in Don Quixote proved conclusively that what Michael thought, other people besides himself thought. He might be old-fas.h.i.+oned, as Nurse a.s.sured him he was; but if to be old-fas.h.i.+oned was to live in the world of Don Quixote, he certainly preferred it to the world in which Nanny lived. That seemed to him a circ.u.mscribed and close existence for which he had no sympathy. It was a world of poking about in medicine-cupboards, of blind unreasonableness, of stupidity and malice and blank ugliness. He would sit watching Nanny nibbling with her front teeth the capers of the caper sauce, and he would hate her. She interfered with him, with his day-dreams and toys and meals; and the only time when he wanted her presence was in the middle of the night, when she was either drinking her gla.s.s of ale in the kitchen or snoring heavily in the next room. Michael's only ambition was to live in his own world. This he would have shared with his mother, but her visits were now so rare that it was unwise to rely on her presence for happiness. He was learning to do without her: Nurse he had never yet learnt to endure.

She charged ferociously into his fancies, shattering them with her fussy interference, just as she would s.n.a.t.c.h away his clay pipe, when the most perfect bubble was trembling on the edge of the bowl.

"Time for tea," she would mutter. "Time for bed," she would chatter.

Always it was time for something unpleasant.

Mrs. Frith, on the other hand, was a person whose attractions grew with longer friends.h.i.+p, as Nurse's decreased even from the small quant.i.ty she originally possessed. As Michael month by month grew older, Mrs. Frith expanded towards him. She found him an attentive, even a breathless listener to her rollicking tales. Her life Michael plainly perceived to have been crammed with exciting adventures. In earliest youth she had been forced by cunning to outwit a brutal father with the frightening habit of coming home in the evening and taking off his belt to her and her brothers and her sisters. The house in which she lived had been full of hiding-places, and Mrs. Frith, picturing herself to Michael of less ample girth, described wonderfully how her father had actually routed for her with a broom-handle while her mother sat weeping into an ap.r.o.n.

Then it appeared that it was the custom of small boys in the street of her youth to sell liquorice-water in exchange for pins.

"But was it nice?" asked Michael, remembering liquorice-powder.

"Lovely stuff," Mrs. Frith affirmed. "They used to go calling up and down, 'Fine liquorice-water! Fine liquorice-water! Bring out your pins and have a bottle of liquorice-water.'"

"And did you?" asked Michael.

"Did we? Of course we did--every pin in the place. There wasn't a pin in the whole street after those boys had gone by."

"What else did you do when you were little, Mrs, Frith?"

"What else? Why everything."

"Yes, but tell me what," Michael begged, clasping his knees and looking earnestly at Cook.

"Why once I went to a Sunday-school treat and got thrown off of a donkey and showed more than I meant and the boys all hollered after me going to Sunday-school and I used to stand behind a corner and dodge them. The saucy demons!"

These tales were endless, and Michael thought how jolly it would be to set out early one summer morning with Mrs. Frith and look for adventures like Don Quixote. This became a favourite day-dream, and he used to fancy Mrs. Frith tossed in a blanket like Sancho Panza. What company she would be, and it would be possible with two donkeys. He had seen women as fat as her riding on donkeys by the seaside.

One day Mrs. Frith told him she was thinking of getting married again, and on a Sunday afternoon Michael was introduced to her future husband, a certain Mr. Hopkins, who had a s.h.i.+ning red head and an enormous coloured handkerchief into which he trumpeted continuously. Mr. Hopkins also had a daughter three or four years older than Michael--a wizened little girl called Flossie who spoke in a sort of hiss and wore very conspicuous underclothing of red flannelette. Michael and Flossie played together shyly under the admiring patronage of Mrs. Frith and Mr.

Hopkins, and were just beginning to be friendly when Nurse came in and said:

"Can't be allowed. No, no. Never heard of such a thing. Tut-tut."

After this Nurse and Mrs. Frith did not seem to get on very well, and Mrs. Frith used to talk about 'people as gave theirselves airs which they had no business to of done.' She was kinder than ever to Michael and gave him as many sultanas as he wanted and told him all about the house into which she and Mr. Hopkins and Flossie would presently depart from Carlington Road.

"Are you going away?" Michael asked, aghast.

"Going to be married," said Mrs. Frith.

"But I don't want you to go."

"There, bless your heart, I've a good mind to stay. I believe you'll miss your poor old Mrs. Frith, eh, ducky?"

Everybody nice went away, Michael thought. It was extraordinary how only nasty food and nasty people were wholesome.

Mrs. Frith's departure was even more exciting than her stories. One afternoon Michael found her in the kitchen, dancing about with her skirts kilted above her knees. He was a little embarra.s.sed at first, but very soon he had to laugh because she was evidently not behaving like this in order to show off, but because she enjoyed dancing about the kitchen.

"Why are you dancing, Mrs. Frith?" he asked.

"Happy as a lark, lovey," she answered in an odd voice. "Happy as a lark, for we won't go home till morning, we won't go home till morning,"

and singing, she twirled round and round until she sank into a wicker arm-chair. At this moment Annie came running downstairs with Nurse, and both of them glared at Mrs. Frith with shocked expressions.

"What ever are you doing, Cook?" said Nurse.

"That's all right, lovey. That's All Sir Garnet, and don't you make no mistake. Don't you--make no mistake."

Here Mrs. Frith gave a very loud hiccup and waved her arms and did not even say 'beg pardon' for the offensive noise.

"Michael," said Nurse, "go upstairs at once. Mrs. Frith, get up. You ignorant and vulgar woman. Get up."

"And you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Cook to Nurse. "You old performing monkey, that's what you are."

"Annie," said Nurse, "fetch a policeman in, and go and get this woman's box."