MUTABILE SEMPER
She stood on the other side of the garden fence, and regarded
me gravely as I came down the road. Then she said, "Hi--o!" and I
responded, "Hullo!" and pulled up somewhat nervously.
To tell the truth, the encounter was not entirely unexpected on
my part. The previous Sunday I had seen her in church, and after
service it had transpired who she was, this new-comer, and what
aunt she was staying with. That morning a volunteer had been
called for, to take a note to the Parsonage, and rather to my own
surprise I had found myself stepping forward with alacrity, while
the others had become suddenly absorbed in various pursuits, or
had sneaked unobtrusively out of view. Certainly I had not yet
formed any deliberate plan of action; yet I suppose I recollected
that the road to the Parsonage led past her aunt's garden.
She began the conversation, while I hopped backwards and
forwards over the ditch, feigning a careless ease.
"Saw you in church on Sunday," she said; "only you looked
different then. All dressed up, and your hair quite smooth, and
brushed up at the sides, and oh, so shiny! What do they put on it
to make it shine like that? Don't you hate having your hair
brushed?" she ran on, without waiting for an answer. "How your
boots squeaked when you came down the aisle! When mine squeak, I
walk in all the puddles till they stop. Think I'll get over the
fence."
This she proceeded to do in a businesslike way, while, with my
hands deep In my pockets, I regarded her movements with silent
interest, as those of some strange new animal.
"I've been gardening," she explained, when she had joined me,
"but I didn't like it. There's so many worms about to-day. I hate
worms. Wish they'd keep out of the way when I'm digging."
"Oh, I like worms when I'm digging," I replied heartily, "seem
to make things more lively, don't they?"
She reflected. "Shouldn't mind 'em so much if they were warm
and dry," she said, "but--" here she shivered, and somehow I
liked her for it, though if it had been my own flesh and blood
hoots of derision would have instantly assailed her,
From worms we passed, naturally enough, to frogs, and thence to
pigs, aunts, gardeners, rocking-horses, and other fellow-citizens
of our common kingdom. In five minutes we had each other's
confidences, and I seemed to have known her for a lifetime.
Somehow, on the subject of one's self it was easier to be frank
and communicative with her than with one's female kin. It must
be, I supposed, because she was less familiar with one's faulty,
tattered past.
"I was watching you as you came along the road," she said
presently, "and you had your head down and your hands in your
pockets, and you weren't throwing stones at anything, or
whistling, or jumping over things; and I thought perhaps you'd
bin scolded, or got a stomachache."
"No," I answered shyly, "it wasn't that. Fact is, I was--I
often--but it's a secret."
There I made an error in tactics. That enkindling word set her
dancing round me, half beseeching, half imperious. "Oh, do tell
it me!" she cried. "You must! I'II never tell anyone else at all,
I vow and declare I won't!"
Her small frame wriggled with emotion, and with imploring eyes
she jigged impatiently just in front of me. Her hair was tumbled
bewitchingly on her shoulders, and even the loss of a front
tooth--a loss incidental to her age--seemed but to add a piquancy
to her face.
"You won't care to hear about it," I said, wavering. "Besides,
I can't explain exactly. I think I won't tell you." But all the
time I knew I should have to.
"But I do care," she wailed plaintively. "I didn't think you'd
be so unkind!"
This would never do. That little downward tug at either corner
of the mouth--I knew the symptom only too well!
"It 's like this," I began stammeringly. "This bit of road
here--up as far as that corner--you know it 's a horrid dull bit
of road. I'm always having to go up and down it, and I know it so
well, and I'm so sick of it. So whenever I get to that corner, I
just--well, I go right off to another place!"
"What sort of a place?" she asked, looking round her gravely.
"Of course it's just a place I imagine," I went on hurriedly
and rather shamefacedly: "but it's an awfully nice place--the
nicest place you ever saw. And I always go off there in church,
or during joggraphy lessons."
"I'm sure it's not nicer than my home," she cried
patriotically. "Oh, you ought to see my home--it 's lovely! We've
got--"
"Yes it is, ever so much nicer," I interrupted. "I mean"--I
went on apologetically--" of course I know your home's beautiful
and all that. But this must be nicer, 'cos if you want anything
at all, you've only got to want it, and you can have it!"
"That sounds jolly," she murmured. "Tell me more about it,
please. Tell me how you get there, first."
"I--don't--quite--know--exactly," replied. "I just go. But
generally it begins by--well, you're going up a broad, clear
river in a sort of a boat. You're not rowing or anything--you're
just moving along. And there's beautiful grass meadows on both
sides, and the river's very full, quite up to the level of the
grass. And you glide along by the edge. And the people are
haymaking there, and playing games, and walking about; and they
shout to you, and you shout back to them, and they bring you
things to eat out of their baskets, and let you drink out of
their bottles; and some of 'em are the nice people you read about
in books. And so at last you come to the Palace steps--great
broad marble steps, reaching right down to the water. And there
at the steps you find every sort of boat you can imagine--
schooners, and punts, and row-boats, and little men-of-war. And
you have any sort of boating you want to--rowing, or sailing, or
shoving about in a punt!"
"I'd go sailing," she said decidedly: "and I 'd steer. No,
you'd have to steer, and I'd sit about on the deck. No, I
wouldn't though; I'd row--at least I'd make you row, and I'd
steer. And then we'd--Oh, no! I'll tell you what we do! We'd just
sit in a punt and dabble!"
"Of course we'll do just what you like," I said hospitably; but
already I was beginning to feel my liberty of action somewhat
curtailed by this exigent visitor I had so rashly admitted into
my sanctum.
I don't think we'd boat at all," she finally decided. "It's
always so wobbly Where do you come to next?"
"You go up the steps," I continued, "and in at the door, and
the very first place you come to is the Chocolate-room!"
She brightened up at this, and I heard her murmur with gusto,
"Chocolate-room!"
"It's got every sort of chocolate you can think of," I went on:
"soft chocolate, with sticky stuff inside, white and pink, what
girls like; and hard shiny chocolate, that cracks when you bite
it, and takes such a nice long time to suck!"
"I like the soft stuff best," she said: "'cos you can eat such
a lot more of it!" This was to me a new aspect of the chocolate
question, and I regarded her with interest and some respect. With
us, chocolate was none too common a thing, and, whenever we
happened to come by any, we resorted to the quaintest devices in
order to make it last out. Still, legends had reached us of
children who actually had, from time to time, as much chocolate
as they could possibly eat; and here, apparently, was one of
them.
"You can have all the creams," I said magnanimously, "and I'll
eat the hard sticks, 'cos I like 'em best."
"Oh, but you mustn't!" she cried impetuously. "You must eat the
same as I do! It isn't nice to want to eat different. I'll tell
you what--you must give me all the chocolate, and then I'll give
you--I'll give you what you ought to have!"
"Oh, all right," I said, in a subdued sort of way. It seemed a
little hard to be put under a sentimental restriction like this
in one s own Chocolate-room.
"In the next room you come to, "I proceeded, "there's fizzy
drinks! There's a marble-slab business all round the room, and
little silver taps; and you just turn the right tap, and have any
kind of fizzy drink you want."
"What fizzy drinks are there?" she inquired.
"Oh, all sorts," I answered hastily, hurrying on. (She might
restrict my eatables, but I'd be hanged if I was going to have
her meddle with my drinks.) "Then you go down the corridor, and
at the back of the palace there's a great big park--the finest
park you ever saw. And there's ponies to ride on, and carriages
and carts; and a little railway, all complete, engine and guard's
van and all; and you work it yourself, and you can go first-
class, or in the van, or on the engine, just whichever you
choose."
"I'd go on the engine," she murmured dreamily. "No, I wouldn't,
I'd--"
"Then there 's all the soldiers," I struck in. Really the line
had to be drawn somewhere, and I could not have my railway system
disorganized and turned upside down by a mere girl. "There's any
quantity of 'em, fine big soldiers, and they all belong to me.
And a row of brass cannons all along the terrace! And every now
and then I give the order, and they fire off all the guns!"
"No, they don't," she interrupted hastily. "I won't have 'em
fire off any guns You must tell 'em not to. I hate guns, and as
soon as they begin firing I shall run right away!"
"But--but that 's what they're there for," I protested, aghast
"I don't care," she insisted. "They mustn't do it. They can
walk about behind me if they like, and talk to me, and carry
things. But they mustn't fire off any guns."
I was sadly conscious by this time that in this brave palace of
mine, wherein I was wont to swagger daily, irresponsible and
unquestioned, I was rapidly becoming--so to speak--a mere lodger.
The idea of my fine big soldiers being told off to "carry
things"! I was not inclined to tell her any more, though there
still remained plenty more to tell.
"Any other boys there?" she asked presently, in a casual sort
of way. "Oh yes," I unguardedly replied. "Nice chaps, too. We'll
have great--" Then I recollected myself. "We'll play with them,
of course," I went on. "But you are going to be my friend, aren't
you? And you'll come in my boat, and we'll travel in the guard's
van together, and I'll stop the soldiers firing off their guns!"
But she looked mischievously away, and--do what I would--I could
not get her to promise.
Just then the striking of the village clock awoke within me
another clamorous timepiece, reminding me of mid-day mutton a
good half-mile away, and of penalties and curtailments attaching
to a late appearance. We took a hurried farewell of each other,
and before we parted I got from her an admission that she might
be gardening again that afternoon, if only the worms would be
less aggressive and give her a chance.
"Remember," I said as I turned to go, "you mustn't tell anybody
about what I've been telling you!"
She appeared to hesitate, swinging one leg to and fro while she
regarded me sideways with half-shut eyes.
"It's a dead secret," I said artfully. "A secret between us
two, and nobody knows it except ourselves!
Then she promised, nodding violently, big-eyed, her mouth
pursed up small. The delight of revelation, and the bliss of
possessing a secret, run each other very close. But the latter
generally wins--for a time.
I had passed the mutton stage and was weltering in warm rice
pudding, before I found leisure to pause and take in things
generally; and then a glance in the direction of the window told
me, to my dismay, that it was raining hard. This was annoying in
every way, for, even if it cleared up later, the worms--I knew
well from experience--would be offensively numerous and frisky.
Sulkily I said grace and accompanied the others upstairs to the
schoolroom; where I got out my paint-box and resolved to devote
myself seriously to Art, which of late I had much neglected.
Harold got hold of a sheet of paper and a pencil, retired to a
table in the corner, squared his elbows, and protruded his
tongue. Literature had always been his form of artistic
expression.
Selina had a fit of the fidgets, bred of the unpromising
weather, and, instead of settling down to something on her own
account, must needs walk round and annoy us artists, intent on
embodying our conceptions of the ideal. She had been looking over
my shoulder some minutes before I knew of it; or I would have had
a word or two to say upon the subject.
"I suppose you call that thing a ship," she remarked
contemptuously. "Who ever heard of a pink ship? Hoo-hoo!"
I stifled my wrath, knowing that in order to score properly it
was necessary to keep a cool head.
"There is a pink ship," I observed with forced calmness, "lying
in the toyshop window now. You can go and look at it if you like.
D' you suppose you know more about ships than the fellows who
make 'em?"
Selina, baffled for the moment, returned to the charge
presently.
"Those are funny things, too," she observed. "S'pose they 're
meant to be trees. But they're blue."
"They are trees," I replied with severity; "and they are blue.
They've got to be blue, 'cos you stole my gamboge last week, so I
can't mix up any green."
"Didn't steal your gamboge," declared Selina, haughtily, edging
away, however, in the direction of Harold. "And I wouldn't tell
lies, either, if I was you, about a dirty little bit of
gainboge."
I preserved a discreet silence. After all, I knew she knew she
stole my gainboge.
The moment Harold became conscious of Selina's stealthy
approach, he dropped his pencil and flung himself flat upon the
table, protecting thus his literary efforts from chilling
criticism by the interposed thickness of his person. From some-
where in his interior proceeded a heart-rending compound of
squeal and whistle, as of escaping steam,--long-drawn, ear-
piercing, unvarying in note.
"I only just wanted to see," protested Selina, struggling to
uproot his small body from the scrawl it guarded. But Harold
clung limpet-like to the table edge, and his shrill protest
continued to deafen humanity and to threaten even the serenities
of Olympus. The time seemed come for a demonstration in force.
Personally I cared little what soul-outpourings of Harold were
priated by Selina--she was pretty sure to get hold of them sooner
or later--and indeed I rather welcomed the diversion as
favourable to the undisturbed pursuit of Art. But the
clannishness of sex has its unwritten laws. Boys, as such, are
sufficiently put upon, maltreated, trodden under, as it is.
Should they fail to hang together in perilous times, what
disasters, what ignominies may not be looked for? Possibly even
an extinction of the tribe. I dropped my paint brush and sailed
shouting into the fray.
The result for a short space hung dubious. There is a period of
life when the difference of a year or two in age far outweighs
the minor advantage of sex. Then the gathers of Selina's frock
came away with a sound like the rattle of distant musketry; and
this calamity it was, rather than mere brute compulsion, that
quelled her indomitable spirit.
The female tongue is mightier than the sword, as I soon had
good reason to know, when Selina, her riven garment held out at
length, avenged her discomfiture with the Greek-fire of
personalities and abuse. Every black incident in my short, but
not stainless, career--every error, every folly, every penalty
ignobly suffered--were paraded before me as in a magic-lantern
show. The information, however, was not particularly new to me,
and the effect was staled by previous rehearsals. Besides, a
victory remains a victory, whatever the moral character of the
triumphant general.
Harold chuckled and crowed as he dropped from the table,
revealing the document over which so many gathers had sighed
their short lives out. "You can read it if you like," he said to
me gratefully. "It's only a Death-letter."
It had never been possible to say what Harold's particular
amusement of the hour might turn out to be. One thing only was
certain, that it would be something improbable, unguessable, not
to be foretold. Who, for instance, in search of relaxation, would
ever dream of choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary
disposition of property? Yet this was the form taken by Harold's
latest craze; and in justice this much had to be said for him,
that in the christening of his amusement he had gone right to the
heart of the matter. The words "will" and "testament" have
various meanings and uses; but about the signification of "death-
letter" there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the
crumpled paper and read. In actual form it deviated considerably
from that usually adopted by family solicitors of standing, the
only resemblance, indeed, lying in the absence of punctuation.
"my dear edward (it ran) when I die I leave all my muny to you
my walkin sticks wips my crop my sord and gun bricks forts and
all things i have goodbye my dear charlotte when die I leave you
my wach and cumpus and pencel case my salors and camperdown my
picteres and evthing goodbye your loving brother armen my dear
Martha I love you very much i leave you my garden my mice and
rabets my plants in pots when I die please take care of them my
dear--" Catera desunt.
"Why, you 're not leaving me anything!" exclaimed Selina,
indignantly. "You're a regular mean little boy, and I'll take
back the last birthday present I gave you!"
"I don't care," said Harold, repossessing himself of the
document. "I was going to leave you something, but I sha'n't now,
'cos you tried to read my death-letter before I was dead!"
"Then I'II write a death-letter myself," retorted Selina,
scenting an artistic vengeance: "and I sha'n't leave you a single
thing!" And she went off in search of a pencil.
The tempest within-doors had kept my attention off the
condition of things without. But now a glance through the window
told me that the rain had entirely ceased, and that everything
was bathed instead in a radiant glow of sunlight, more golden
than any gamboge of mine could possibly depict. Leaving Selina
and Harold to settle their feud by a mutual disinheritance, I
slipped from the room and escaped into the open air, eager to
pick up the loose end of my new friendship just where I had
dropped it that morning. In the glorious reaction of the sunshine
after the downpour, with its moist warm smells, bespanglement of
greenery, and inspiriting touch of rain-washed air, the parks and
palaces of the imagination glowed with a livelier iris, and their
blurred beauties shone out again with fresh blush and
palpitation. As I sped along to the tryst, again I accompanied my
new comrade along the corridors of my pet palace into which I had
so hastily introduced her; and on reflection I began to see that
it wouldn't work properly. I had made a mistake, and those were
not the surroundings in which she was most fitted to shine.
However, it really did not matter much; I had other palaces to
place at her disposal--plenty of 'em; and on a further
acquaintance with and knowledge of her tastes, no doubt I could
find something to suit her.
There was a real Arabian one, for instance, which I visited but
rarely--only just when I was in the fine Oriental mood for it; a
wonder of silk hangings, fountains of rosewater, pavilions, and
minarets. Hundreds of silent, well-trained slaves thronged the
stairs and alleys of this establishment, ready to fetch and carry
for her all day, if she wished it; and my brave soldiers would be
spared the indignity. Also there were processions through the
bazaar at odd moments--processions with camels, elephants, and
palanquins. Yes, she was more suited for the East, this imperious
young person; and I determined that thither she should be
personally conducted as soon as ever might be.
I reached the fence and climbed up two bars of it, and leaning
over I looked this way and that for my twin-souled partner of the
morning. It was not long before I caught sight of her, only a
short distance away. Her back was towards me and--well, one can
never foresee exactly how one will find things--she was talking
to a Boy.
Of course there are boys and boys, and Lord knows I was never
narrow. But this was the parson's son from an adjoining village,
a red-headed boy and as common a little beast as ever stepped. He
cultivated ferrets--his only good point; and it was evidently
through the medium of this art that he was basely supplanting me,
for her head was bent absorbedly over something he carried in his
hands. With some trepidation I called out,"Hi!" But answer there
was none. Then again I called, "Hi!" but this time with a
sickening sense of failure and of doom. She replied only by a
complex gesture, decisive in import if not easily described. A
petulant toss of the head, a jerk of the left shoulder, and a
backward kick of the left foot, all delivered at once--that was
all, and that was enough. The red-headed boy never even
condescended to glance my way. Why, indeed, should he? I dropped
from the fence without another effort, and took my way homewards
along the weary road.
Little inclination was left to me, at first, for any solitary
visit to my accustomed palace, the pleasures of which I had so
recently tasted in company; and yet after a minute or two I found
myself, from habit, sneaking off there much as usual. Presently I
became aware of a certain solace and consolation in my newly-
recovered independence of action. Quit of all female whims and
fanciful restrictions, I rowed, sailed, or punted, just as I
pleased; in the Chocolate-room I cracked and nibbled the hard
sticks, with a certain contempt for those who preferred the soft,
veneered article; and I mixed and quaffed countless fizzy drinks
without dread of any prohibitionist. Finally, I swaggered into
the park, paraded all my soldiers on the terrace, and, bidding
them take the time from me, gave the order to fire off all the guns.
