Part 2

The Burnell children could hardly walk to school fast enough the next morning. They burned to tell everybody, to describe, to—well—to boast about their doll’s house before the school-bell rang.

“I’m to tell,” said Isabel, “because I’m the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I’m to tell first.”

There was nothing to answer. Isabel was bossy, but she was always right, and Lottie and Kezia knew too well the powers that went with being eldest. They brushed through the thick buttercups at the road edge and said nothing.

“And I’m to choose who’s to come and see it first. Mother said I might.”

For it had been arranged that while the doll’s house stood in the courtyard they might ask the girls at school, two at a time, to come and look. Not to stay to tea, of course, or to come traipsing through the house. But just to stand quietly in the courtyard while Isabel pointed out the beauties, and Lottie and Kezia looked pleased....

But hurry as they might, by the time they had reached the tarred palings of the boys’ playground the bell had begun to jangle. They only just had time to whip off their hats and fall into line before the roll was called. Never mind. Isabel tried to make up for it by looking very important and mysterious and by whispering behind her hand to the girls near her, “Got something to tell you at playtime.”

Playtime came and Isabel was surrounded. The girls of her class nearly fought to put their arms round her, to walk away with her, to beam flatteringly, to be her special friend. She held quite a court under the huge pine trees at the side of the playground. Nudging, giggling together, the little girls pressed up close. And the only two who stayed outside the ring were the two who were always outside, the little Kelveys. They knew better than to come anywhere near the Burnells.

For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children in the neighbourhood, the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters, the store-keeper’s children, the milkman’s, were forced to mix together. Not to speak of there being an equal number of rude, rough little boys as well. But the line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn at the Kelveys. Many of the children, including the Burnells, were not allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air, and as they set the fashion in all matters of behaviour, the Kelveys were shunned by everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers.

They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people’s children! And they looked it. Why Mrs. Kelvey made them so conspicuous was hard to understand. The truth was they were dressed in “bits” given to her by the people for whom she worked. Lil, for instance, who was a stout, plain child, with big freckles, came to school in a dress made from a green art-serge table-cloth of the Burnells’, with red plush sleeves from the Logans’ curtains. Her hat, perched on top of her high forehead, was a grown-up woman’s hat, once the property of Miss Lecky, the postmistress. It was turned up at the back and trimmed with a large scarlet quill. What a little guy she looked! It was impossible not to laugh. And her little sister, our Else, wore a long white dress, rather like a nightgown, and a pair of little boy’s boots. But whatever our Else wore she would have looked strange. She was a tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and enormous solemn eyes—a little white owl. Nobody had ever seen her smile; she scarcely ever spoke. She went through life holding on to Lil, with a piece of Lil’s skirt screwed up in her hand. Where Lil went our Else followed. In the playground, on the road going to and from school, there was Lil marching in front and our Else holding on behind. Only when she wanted anything, or when she was out of breath, our Else gave Lil a tug, a twitch, and Lil stopped and turned round. The Kelveys never failed to understand each other.

Now they hovered at the edge; you couldn’t stop them listening. When the little girls turned round and sneered, Lil, as usual, gave her silly, shamefaced smile, but our Else only looked.

And Isabel’s voice, so very proud, went on telling. The carpet made a great sensation, but so did the beds with real bedclothes, and the stove with an oven door.

When she finished Kezia broke in. “You’ve forgotten the lamp, Isabel.”

“Oh, yes,” said Isabel, “and there’s a teeny little lamp, all made of yellow glass, with a white globe that stands on the dining-room table. You couldn’t tell it from a real one.”

“The lamp’s best of all,” cried Kezia. She thought Isabel wasn’t making half enough of the little lamp. But nobody paid any attention. Isabel was choosing the two who were to come back with them that afternoon and see it. She chose Emmie Cole and Lena Logan. But when the others knew they were all to have a chance, they couldn’t be nice enough to Isabel. One by one they put their arms round Isabel’s waist and walked her off. They had something to whisper to her, a secret. “Isabel’s _my_ friend.”

Only the little Kelveys moved away forgotten; there was nothing more for them to hear.

* * * * *

Days passed, and as more children saw the doll’s house, the fame of it spread. It became the one subject, the rage. The one question was, “Have you seen Burnells’ doll’s house? Oh, ain’t it lovely!” “Haven’t you seen it? Oh, I say!”

Even the dinner hour was given up to talking about it. The little girls sat under the pines eating their thick mutton sandwiches and big slabs of johnny cake spread with butter. While always, as near as they could get, sat the Kelveys, our Else holding on to Lil, listening too, while they chewed their jam sandwiches out of a newspaper soaked with large red blobs....

“Mother,” said Kezia, “can’t I ask the Kelveys just once?”

“Certainly not, Kezia.”

“But why not?”

“Run away, Kezia; you know quite well why not.”

* * * * *

At last everybody had seen it except them. On that day the subject rather flagged. It was the dinner hour. The children stood together under the pine trees, and suddenly, as they looked at the Kelveys eating out of their paper, always by themselves, always listening, they wanted to be horrid to them. Emmie Cole started the whisper.

“Lil Kelvey’s going to be a servant when she grows up.”

“O-oh, how awful!” said Isabel Burnell, and she made eyes at Emmie.

Emmie swallowed in a very meaning way and nodded to Isabel as she’d seen her mother do on those occasions.

“It’s true—it’s true—it’s true,” she said.

Then Lena Logan’s little eyes snapped. “Shall I ask her?” she whispered.

“Bet you don’t,” said Jessie May.

“Pooh, I’m not frightened,” said Lena. Suddenly she gave a little squeal and danced in front of the other girls. “Watch! Watch me! Watch me now!” said Lena. And sliding, gliding, dragging one foot, giggling behind her hand, Lena went over to the Kelveys.

Lil looked up from her dinner. She wrapped the rest quickly away. Our Else stopped chewing. What was coming now?

“Is it true you’re going to be a servant when you grow up, Lil Kelvey?” shrilled Lena.

Dead silence. But instead of answering, Lil only gave her silly, shamefaced smile. She didn’t seem to mind the question at all. What a sell for Lena! The girls began to titter.

Lena couldn’t stand that. She put her hands on her hips; she shot forward. “Yah, yer father’s in prison!” she hissed, spitefully.

This was such a marvellous thing to have said that the little girls rushed away in a body, deeply, deeply excited, wild with joy. Some one found a long rope, and they began skipping. And never did they skip so high, run in and out so fast, or do such daring things as on that morning.

In the afternoon Pat called for the Burnell children with the buggy and they drove home. There were visitors. Isabel and Lottie, who liked visitors, went upstairs to change their pinafores. But Kezia thieved out at the back. Nobody was about; she began to swing on the big white gates of the courtyard. Presently, looking along the road, she saw two little dots. They grew bigger, they were coming towards her. Now she could see that one was in front and one close behind. Now she could see that they were the Kelveys. Kezia stopped swinging. She slipped off the gate as if she was going to run away. Then she hesitated. The Kelveys came nearer, and beside them walked their shadows, very long, stretching right across the road with their heads in the buttercups. Kezia clambered back on the gate; she had made up her mind; she swung out.

“Hullo,” she said to the passing Kelveys.

They were so astounded that they stopped. Lil gave her silly smile. Our Else stared.

“You can come and see our doll’s house if you want to,” said Kezia, and she dragged one toe on the ground. But at that Lil turned red and shook her head quickly.

“Why not?” asked Kezia.

Lil gasped, then she said, “Your ma told our ma you wasn’t to speak to us.”

“Oh, well,” said Kezia. She didn’t know what to reply. “It doesn’t matter. You can come and see our doll’s house all the same. Come on. Nobody’s looking.”

But Lil shook her head still harder.

“Don’t you want to?” asked Kezia.

Suddenly there was a twitch, a tug at Lil’s skirt. She turned round. Our Else was looking at her with big, imploring eyes; she was frowning; she wanted to go. For a moment Lil looked at our Else very doubtfully. But then our Else twitched her skirt again. She started forward. Kezia led the way. Like two little stray cats they followed across the courtyard to where the doll’s house stood.

“There it is,” said Kezia.

There was a pause. Lil breathed loudly, almost snorted; our Else was still as a stone.

“I’ll open it for you,” said Kezia kindly. She undid the hook and they looked inside.

“There’s the drawing-room and the dining-room, and that’s the—”

“Kezia!”

Oh, what a start they gave!

“Kezia!”

It was Aunt Beryl’s voice. They turned round. At the back door stood Aunt Beryl, staring as if she couldn’t believe what she saw.

“How dare you ask the little Kelveys into the courtyard?” said her cold, furious voice. “You know as well as I do, you’re not allowed to talk to them. Run away, children, run away at once. And don’t come back again,” said Aunt Beryl. And she stepped into the yard and shooed them out as if they were chickens.

“Off you go immediately!” she called, cold and proud.

They did not need telling twice. Burning with shame, shrinking together, Lil huddling along like her mother, our Else dazed, somehow they crossed the big courtyard and squeezed through the white gate.

“Wicked, disobedient little girl!” said Aunt Beryl bitterly to Kezia, and she slammed the doll’s house to.

The afternoon had been awful. A letter had come from Willie Brent, a terrifying, threatening letter, saying if she did not meet him that evening in Pulman’s Bush, he’d come to the front door and ask the reason why! But now that she had frightened those little rats of Kelveys and given Kezia a good scolding, her heart felt lighter. That ghastly pressure was gone. She went back to the house humming.

When the Kelveys were well out of sight of Burnells’, they sat down to rest on a big red drain-pipe by the side of the road. Lil’s cheeks were still burning; she took off the hat with the quill and held it on her knee. Dreamily they looked over the hay paddocks, past the creek, to the group of wattles where Logan’s cows stood waiting to be milked. What were their thoughts?

Presently our Else nudged up close to her sister. But now she had forgotten the cross lady. She put out a finger and stroked her sister’s quill; she smiled her rare smile.

“I seen the little lamp,” she said, softly.

Then both were silent once more.

HONEYMOON

And when they came out of the lace shop there was their own driver and the cab they called their own cab waiting for them under a plane tree. What luck! Wasn’t it luck? Fanny pressed her husband’s arm. These things seemed always to be happening to them ever since they—came abroad. Didn’t he think so too? But George stood on the pavement edge, lifted his stick, and gave a loud “Hi!” Fanny sometimes felt a little uncomfortable about the way George summoned cabs, but the drivers didn’t seem to mind, so it must have been all right. Fat, good-natured, and smiling, they stuffed away the little newspaper they were reading, whipped the cotton cover off the horse, and were ready to obey.

“I say,” George said as he helped Fanny in, “suppose we go and have tea at the place where the lobsters grow. Would you like to?”

“Most awfully,” said Fanny, fervently, as she leaned back, wondering why the way George put things made them sound so very nice.

“R-right, _bien_.” He was beside her. “_Allay_,” he cried gaily, and off they went.

Off they went, spanking along lightly, under the green and gold shade of the plane trees, through the small streets that smelled of lemons and fresh coffee, past the fountain square where women, with water-pots lifted, stopped talking to gaze after them, round the corner past the café, with its pink and white umbrellas, green tables, and blue siphons, and so to the sea front. There a wind, light, warm, came flowing over the boundless sea. It touched George, and Fanny it seemed to linger over while they gazed at the dazzling water. And George said, “Jolly, isn’t it?” And Fanny, looking dreamy, said, as she said at least twenty times a day since they—came abroad: “Isn’t it extraordinary to think that here we are quite alone, away from everybody, with nobody to tell us to go home, or to—to order us about except ourselves?”

George had long since given up answering “Extraordinary!” As a rule he merely kissed her. But now he caught hold of her hand, stuffed it into his pocket, pressed her fingers, and said, “I used to keep a white mouse in my pocket when I was a kid.”

“Did you?” said Fanny, who was intensely interested in everything George had ever done. “Were you very fond of white mice?”

“Fairly,” said George, without conviction. He was looking at something, bobbing out there beyond the bathing steps. Suddenly he almost jumped in his seat. “Fanny!” he cried. “There’s a chap out there bathing. Do you see? I’d no idea people had begun. I’ve been missing it all these days.” George glared at the reddened face, the reddened arm, as though he could not look away. “At any rate,” he muttered, “wild horses won’t keep me from going in to-morrow.”

Fanny’s heart sank. She had heard for years of the frightful dangers of the Mediterranean. It was an absolute death-trap. Beautiful, treacherous Mediterranean. There it lay curled before them, its white, silky paws touching the stones and gone again.... But she’d made up her mind long before she was married that never would she be the kind of woman who interfered with her husband’s pleasures, so all she said was, airily, “I suppose one has to be very up in the currents, doesn’t one?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said George. “People talk an awful lot of rot about the danger.”

But now they were passing a high wall on the land side, covered with flowering heliotrope, and Fanny’s little nose lifted. “Oh, George,” she breathed. “The smell! The most divine....”

“Topping villa,” said George. “Look, you can see it through the palms.”

“Isn’t it rather large?” said Fanny, who somehow could not look at any villa except as a possible habitation for herself and George.

“Well, you’d need a crowd of people if you stayed there long,” replied George. “Deadly, otherwise. I say, it is ripping. I wonder who it belongs to.” And he prodded the driver in the back.

The lazy, smiling driver, who had no idea, replied, as he always did on these occasions, that it was the property of a wealthy Spanish family.

“Masses of Spaniards on this coast,” commented George, leaning back again, and they were silent until, as they rounded a bend, the big, bone-white hotel-restaurant came into view. Before it there was a small terrace built up against the sea, planted with umbrella palms, set out with tables, and at their approach, from the terrace, from the hotel, waiters came running to receive, to welcome, Fanny and George, to cut them off from any possible kind of escape.

“Outside?”

Oh, but of course they would sit outside. The sleek manager, who was marvellously like a fish in a frock coat, skimmed forward.

“Dis way, sir. Dis way, sir. I have a very nice little table,” he gasped. “Just the little table for you, sir, over in de corner. Dis way.”

So George, looking most dreadfully bored, and Fanny, trying to look as though she’d spent years of life threading her way through strangers, followed after.

“Here you are, sir. Here you will be very nice,” coaxed the manager, taking the vase off the table, and putting it down again as if it were a fresh little bouquet out of the air. But George refused to sit down immediately. He saw through these fellows; he wasn’t going to be done. These chaps were always out to rush you. So he put his hands in his pockets, and said to Fanny, very calmly, “This all right for you? Anywhere else you’d prefer? How about over there?” And he nodded to a table right over the other side.

What it was to be a man of the world! Fanny admired him deeply, but all she wanted to do was to sit down and look like everybody else.

“I—I like this,” said she.

“Right,” said George, hastily, and he sat down almost before Fanny, and said quickly, “Tea for two and chocolate éclairs.”

“Very good, sir,” said the manager, and his mouth opened and shut as though he was ready for another dive under the water. “You will not ’ave toasts to start with? We ’ave very nice toasts, sir.”

“No,” said George, shortly. “You don’t want toast, do you, Fanny?”

“Oh, no, thank you, George,” said Fanny, praying the manager would go.

“Or perhaps de lady might like to look at de live lobsters in de tank while de tea is coming?” And he grimaced and smirked and flicked his serviette like a fin.

George’s face grew stony. He said “No” again, and Fanny bent over the table, unbuttoning her gloves. When she looked up the man was gone. George took off his hat, tossed it on to a chair, and pressed back his hair.

“Thank God,” said he, “that’s chap’s gone. These foreign fellows bore me stiff. The only way to get rid of them is simply to shut up as you saw I did. Thank Heaven!” sighed George again, with so much emotion that if it hadn’t been ridiculous Fanny might have imagined that he had been as frightened of the manager as she. As it was she felt a rush of love for George. His hands were on the table, brown, large hands that she knew so well. She longed to take one of them and squeeze it hard. But, to her astonishment, George did just that thing, leaning across the table, put his hand over hers, and said, without looking at her, “Fanny, darling Fanny.”

“Oh, George!” It was in that heavenly moment that Fanny heard a _twing-twing-tootle-tootle_, and a light strumming. There’s going to be music, she thought, but the music didn’t matter just then. Nothing mattered except love. Faintly smiling she gazed into that faintly smiling face, and the feeling was so blissful that she felt inclined to say to George, “Let us stay here—where we are—at this little table. It’s perfect, and the sea is perfect. Let us stay.” But instead her eyes grew serious.

“Darling,” said Fanny. “I want to ask you something fearfully important. Promise me you’ll answer. Promise.”

“I promise,” said George, too solemn to be quite as serious as she.

“It’s this.” Fanny paused a moment, looked down, looked up again. “Do you feel,” she said, softly, “that you really know me now? But really, really know _me_?”

It was too much for George. Know his Fanny? He gave a broad, childish grin. “I should jolly well think I do,” he said, emphatically. “Why, what’s up?”

Fanny felt he hadn’t quite understood. She went on quickly: “What I mean is this. So often people, even when they love each other, don’t seem to—to—it’s so hard to say—know each other perfectly. They don’t seem to want to. And I think that’s awful. They misunderstand each other about the most important things of all.” Fanny looked horrified. “George, we couldn’t do that, could we? We never could.”

“Couldn’t be done,” laughed George, and he was just going to tell her how much he liked her little nose, when the waiter arrived with the tea and the band struck up. It was a flute, a guitar, and a violin, and it played so gaily that Fanny felt if she wasn’t careful even the cups and saucers might grow little wings and fly away. George absorbed three chocolate éclairs, Fanny two. The funny-tasting tea—“Lobster in the kettle,” shouted George above the music—was nice all the same, and when the tray was pushed aside and George was smoking, Fanny felt bold enough to look at the other people. But it was the band grouped under one of the dark trees that fascinated her most. The fat man stroking the guitar was like a picture. The dark man playing the flute kept raising his eyebrows as though he was astonished at the sounds that came from it. The fiddler was in shadow.

The music stopped as suddenly as it had begun. It was then she noticed a tall old man with white hair standing beside the musicians. Strange she hadn’t noticed him before. He wore a very high, glazed collar, a coat green at the seams, and shamefully shabby button boots. Was he another manager? He did not look like a manager, and yet he stood there gazing over the table as though thinking of something different and far away from all this. Who could he be?

Presently, as Fanny watched him, he touched the points of his collar with his fingers, coughed slightly, and half-turned to the band. It began to play again. Something boisterous, reckless, full of fire, full of passion, was tossed into the air, was tossed to that quiet figure, which clasped its hands, and still with that far-away look, began to sing.

“Good Lord!” said George. It seemed that everybody was equally astonished. Even the little children eating ices stared, with their spoons in the air.... Nothing was heard except a thin, faint voice, the memory of a voice, singing something in Spanish. It wavered, beat on, touched the high notes, fell again, seemed to implore, to entreat, to beg for something, and then the tune changed, and it was resigned, it bowed down, it knew it was denied.

Almost before the end a little child gave a squeak of laughter, but everybody was smiling—except Fanny and George. Is life like this too? thought Fanny. There are people like this. There is suffering. And she looked at that gorgeous sea, lapping the land as though it loved it, and the sky, bright with the brightness before evening. Had she and George the right to be so happy? Wasn’t it cruel? There must be something else in life which made all these things possible. What was it? She turned to George.

But George had been feeling differently from Fanny. The poor old boy’s voice was funny in a way, but, God, how it made you realize what a terrific thing it was to be at the beginning of everything, as they were, he and Fanny! George, too, gazed at the bright, breathing water, and his lips opened as if he could drink it. How fine it was! There was nothing like the sea for making a chap feel fit. And there sat Fanny, his Fanny, leaning forward, breathing so gently.

“Fanny!” George called to her.