Thunder on the Left (1925)/Chapter 1
NOW that the children were getting big, it wasn't to be called the Nursery any longer. In fact, it was being repapered that very day: the old scribbled Mother Goose pattern had already been covered with new strips, damp and bitter-smelling. But Martin thought he would be able to remember the gay fairy-tale figures, even under the bright fresh paper. There were three bobtailed mice, dancing. They were repeated several times in the procession of pictures that ran round the wall. How often he had studied them as he lay in bed waiting for it to be time to get up. It must be excellent to be Grown Up and able to dress as early as you please. What a golden light lies across the garden those summer mornings.
At any rate, it would be comforting to know that the bobtailed mice were still there, underneath. To-day the smell of the paste and new paper was all through the house. The men were to have come last week. To-day it was awkward: it was Martin's birthday (he was ten) and he and Bunny had been told to invite some friends for a small party. It was raining, too: one of those steady drumming rains that make a house so cosy. The Grown-Ups were having tea on the veranda, so the party was in the dining room. When Mrs. Richmond looked through the glass porch doors to see how they were getting on, she was surprised to find no one visible.
"Where on earth have those children gone?" she exclaimed. "How delightfully quiet they are."
There was a seven-voiced halloo of triumph, and a great scuffle and movement under the big mahogany table. Several steamer rugs had been pinned together and draped across the board so that they hung down forming a kind of pavilion. From this concealment the children came scrambling and surrounded her in a lively group.
"We had all disappeared!" said Bunny. She was really called Eileen, but she was soft and plump and brown-eyed and twitch-nosed; three years younger than her brother.
"You came just in time to save us," said Martin gaily.
"Just in time to save my table," amended Mrs. Richmond. "Bunny, you know how you cried when you scratched your legs going blackberrying. Do you suppose the table likes having its legs scratched any better than you do? And those grimy old rugs all over my lace cloth. Martin, take them off at once."
"We were playing Stern Parents," explained Alec, a cousin and less awed by reproof than the other guests, who were merely friends.
Mrs. Richmond was taken aback. "What a queer name for a game."
"It's a lovely game," said Ruth, her face pink with excitement. "You pretend to be Parents and you all get together and talk about the terrible time you have with your children"
Martin broke in: "And you tell each other all the things you've had to scold them for"
"And you have to forbid their doing all kinds of things," said Ben.
"And speak to them Very Seriously," chirped Bunny. Mrs. Richmond felt a twinge of merriment at the echo of this familiar phrase.
"And every time you've punished them for something that doesn't really matter" (this was Phyllis).
"—You're a Stern Parent, and have to disappear!" cried Martin.
"You get under the table and can't come out until someone says something nice about you."
"It's a very instructing game, 'cause you have to know just how far children can be allowed to go"
"But we were all Stern Parents, and had all disappeared."
"Yes, and then Mother said we were delightfully quiet, and that saved us."
"What an extraordinary game," said Mrs. Richmond.
"All Martin's games are extraordinary," said Phyllis. "He just made up one called Quarrelsome Children."
"Will you play it with us?" asked Bunny.
"I don't believe that's a new game," said her mother. "I'm sure I've seen it played, too often. But it's time for the cake. Straighten up the chairs and I'll go and get it."
Seated round the table, and left alone with the cake, the lighted candles, and the ice cream, the children found much to discuss.
"Ten candles," said Alec, counting them carefully.
"I had thirteen on mine, last birthday," said Phyllis, the oldest of the girls.
"That's nothing, so did I," said Ben.
"Your cook's clever," said Ruth. "She's marked the places to cut, with icing, so you can make all the pieces even."
"I think it was foolish of her," said Martin, "because Bunny is quite a small child still; if she has too much chocolate she comes out in spots."
Bunny and Joyce, at the other end of the table, looked at each other fleetingly, in a tacit alliance of juniority. Joyce was also seven, a dark little elf, rather silent.
"Why don't you blow out the candles?" shrilled Bunny.
This effectively altered the topic. After the sudden hurricane had ceased, Martin began to cut, obediently following the white spokes of sugar.
"I wonder what it feels like to be grown up?" said Alec.
"I guess we'll know if we wait long enough," said Phyllis.
"How old do you have to be, to be grown up?" asked Ruth.
"A man's grown up when he's twenty-one," Ben stated firmly.
"Is Daddy twenty-one?" said Bunny.
Cries of scorn answered this. "Of course he is," said Martin. "Daddy's middle-age, he's over thirty. He's what they call primeoflife, I heard him say so."
"That's just before your hair begins to come out in the comb," said Alec.
Bunny was undismayed, perhaps encouraged by seeing in front of her more ice cream than she had ever been left alone with before.
"Daddy isn't grown up," she insisted. "The other day when we played blind man's buff on the beach, Mother said he was just a big boy."
"Girls grow up quicker," said Phyllis. "My sister's eighteen, she's so grown up she'll hardly speak to me. It happened all at once. She went for a week-end party, when she came back she was grown up."
"That's not grown up," said Ben. "That's just stuck up. Girls get like that. It's a form of nervousness."
They were not aware that Ben had picked up this phrase by overhearing it applied to some eccentricities of his own. They were impressed, and for a moment the ice cream and cake engaged all attentions. Then a round of laughter from the veranda reopened the topic.
"Why do men laugh more than ladies?" asked Bunny.
"It must be wonderful," said Martin.
"You bet!" said Ben. "Think of having long trousers, and smoking a pipe, blowing rings, going to town every day, going to the bank and getting money"
"And all the drug stores where you can stop and have sodas," said Ruth.
"Sailing a boat!"
"Going shopping!"
"The circus!" shouted Bunny.
"I don't mean just doing things," said Martin. "I mean thinking things." His eager face, clearly lit by two candles in tall silver sticks, was suddenly and charmingly grave. "Able to think what you want to; not to have to—to do things you know are wrong." For an instant the boy seemed to tremble on the edge of uttering the whole secret infamy of childhood; the most pitiable of earth's slaveries; perhaps the only one that can never be dissolved. But the others hardly understood; nor did he, himself. He covered his embarrassment by grabbing at a cracker of gilt paper in which Alec was rummaging for the pull.
Joyce had slipped from her chair and was peeping through one of the windows. Something in the talk had struck home to her in a queer, troublesome way. Suddenly, she didn't know why, she wanted to look at the Grown-Ups, to see exactly what they were like. The rest of the party followed her in a common impulse. Joyce's attitude caused them to tiptoe across the room and peer covertly from behind the long curtains. Without a word of explanation all were aware of their odd feeling of spying on the enemy—an implacable enemy, yet one who is (how plainly we realize it when we see him off guard in the opposing trench, busy at his poor affairs, cooking or washing his socks) so kin to ourselves. With the apprehensive alertness of those whose lives may depend on their nimble observation, they watched the unconscious group at the tea table.
"Daddy's taking three lumps," said Bunny. She spoke louder than is prudent in an outpost, and was s-s-sh-ed.
"Your mother's got her elbow on the table," Ruth whispered.
"Daddy's smacking his lips and chomping," insisted Bunny.
"That's worse than talking with your mouth full."
"How queer they look when they laugh."
"Your mother lifts her head like a hen swallowing."
"Yours has her legs crossed."
"It's a form of nervousness."
"They do all the things they tell us not to," said Joyce.
"Look, he's reaching right across the table for another cake."
Martin watched his parents and their friends. What was there in the familiar scene that became strangely perplexing? He could not have put it into words, but there was something in those voices and faces that made him feel frightened, a little lonely. Was that really Mother, by the silver urn with the blue flame flattened under it? He could tell by her expression that she was talking about things that belong to that Other World, the thrillingly exciting world of Parents, whose secrets are so cunningly guarded. That world changes the subject, alters the very tone of its voice, when you approach. He had a wish to run out on the veranda, to reassure himself by the touch of her soft cool arm in the muslin dress. He wanted to touch the teapot, to see if it was hot. If it was, he would know that all this was real. They had gone so far away.—Or were they also only playing a game?
"They look as though they were hiding something," he said.
"They're having fun," Phyllis said. "They always do; grown-ups have a wonderful time."
"Come on,"—Martin remembered that he was the host—"the ice cream will get cold." This was what Daddy always said.
Bunny felt a renewed pride as she climbed into her place at the end of the table. Martin looked solemnly handsome in his Eton collar across the shining spread of candlelight and cloth and pink peppermints. The tinted glass panes above the sideboard were cheerful squares of colour against the wet grey afternoon. She wriggled a little, to reëstablish herself on the slippery chair.
"Our family is getting very grown up," she said happily. "We're not going to have a nursery any more. It's going to be the guest room."
"I don't think I want to be grown up," said Alec suddenly. "It's silly. I don't believe they have a good time at all."
This was a disconcerting opinion. Alec, as an older cousin, held a position of some prestige. A faint dismay was apparent in the gazes that crossed rapidly in the sparkling waxlight.
"I think we ought to make up our minds about it," Martin said gravely. "Pretty soon, the way things are going, we will be, then it'll be too late."
"Silly, what can you do?" said Phyllis. "Of course we've got to grow up, everyone does, unless they die." Her tone was clear and positive, but also there was a just discernible accent of inquiry. She had not yet quite lost her childhood birthright of wonder, of belief that almost anything is possible.
"We'd have to Take Steps," cried Alec, unconsciously quoting the enemy. "We could just decide among ourselves that we simply wouldn't, and if we all lived together we could go on just like we are."
"It would be like a game," said Martin, glowing.
"With toys?" ejaculated Bunny, entranced.
Ben was firmly opposed. "I won't do it. I want to have long trousers and grow a moustache."
Martin's face was serious with the vision of huge alternatives.
"That's it," he said. "We've got to know before we can decide. It's terribly important. If they don't have a good time, we'd better"
"We could ask them if they're happy," exclaimed Ruth, thrilled by the thought of running out on the veranda to propose this stunning question.
"They wouldn't tell you," said Alec. "They're too polite."
Phyllis was trying to remember instructive examples of adult infelicity. "They don't tell the truth," she agreed. "Mother once said that if Daddy went on like that she'd go mad, and I waited and waited, and he did and she didn't."
"You mustn't believe what they say," Martin continued. "They never tell the truth if they think children are around. They don't want us to know what it's like."
"Perhaps they're ashamed of being grown up," Ben suggested.
"We must find out," Martin said, suddenly feeling in his mind the expanding brightness of an idea. "It'll be a new game. We'll all be spies in the enemy's country, we'll watch them and see exactly how they behave, and bring in a report."
"Get hold of their secret codes, and find where their forces are hidden," cried Ben, who liked the military flavour of this thought.
"I think it's a silly game," said Phyllis. "You can't really find out anything; and if you did, you'd be punished. Spies always get caught."
"Penalty of death!" shouted the boys, elated.
"It's harder than being a real spy," said Martin. "You can't wear the enemy's uniform and talk their language. But I'm going to do it, anyhow."
"Me too!" Joyce exclaimed from the other end of the table, where she and Bunny had followed the conversation with half-frightened excitement.
"I want to be a spy!" added Bunny.
"Mustn't have too many spies," said Alec. "The enemy would suspect something was up. Send one first, he'll see what he can find and report to us."
It was not clear to Bunny exactly who the enemy were or how the spying was to be carried out; but if Martin was to do it, it would be well done, she was certain. Spying, that suggested secrecy, and secrecy
"Martin has a little roll-top desk with a key!" she shouted. "Daddy gave it to him for his birthday."
"Oh, I forgot," said Phyllis. She ran out into the living room, and returned with a large parcel. "Many happy returns," she said, laying it in front of Martin. If you listen intently, behind the innocent little phrase you can overhear, like a whispering chorus, the voices of innumerable parents: "And don't forget, when you give it to him, to say Many happy returns."
The others also hurried to get the packages that had been left in the vestibule. There was a great rattling of paper and untying of string; an embarrassed reiteration of thankyous by Martin. He felt it awkward to say the same thing again for each gift.
Hearing the movement in the dining room, the grown-ups had now come in.
"Such a pretty sight."
"I love children's parties, their faces are always a picture."
"Martin, did you say thank you to Alec for that lovely croquet set?"
"This is what I gave him," said Ben, pushing forward the parcheesi board.
"The girls are so dainty, like little flowers."
"Who is the little dark one, over by the window?"
"That's Joyce.—Why, Joyce dear, what are you crying about?"
The strong maternal voice rang through the room with a terrible publicity of compassion. The children stared. Bunny ran and threw her arms round her friend, who had hidden her face in the curtain. Bunny thought she knew what was wrong. Joyce had forgotten to bring a present, and was ashamed because all the others had done so. The miserable little figure tried to efface itself in the curtain; even the tiny pearl buttons at the back of her pink frock had come undone. Things that are close to us, how loyal they are, how they follow the moods of their owners.
"There, there, honey, what's the trouble? After such a lovely party?" This was authoritative pity, threateningly musical.
Bunny pressed her warm lips against a wet petal of nostril.
"Martin doesn't mind," she whispered. "He hates presents."
Joyce could feel powerful fingers buttoning the cool gap between her shoulders. When that was done she would be turned round and asked what was the matter.
"Perhaps she has a pain," boomed a masculine vibration. "These parties always upset them. Worst thing for children."
Joyce could smell a whiff of cigar and see large feet in white canvas shoes approaching. Best to face it now before worse happens. She turned desperately, hampered by Bunny's embrace, almost throttling her in an excess of affection. Breaking away she ran across the room, where Martin and the boys were averting their eyes from the humiliation of the would-be spy. She thrust into his hand a tiny package, damp now.
"It was so small," she said.
A moment of appalling silence hung over the trembling pair. Martin could feel it coming, the words "What do you say, Martin?" seemed forming and rolling up over his head like opal banks of summer storm. Yet he could not have said a word. He seized her hand and shook it, with a grotesque bob of his head.
"Such a little gentleman, how do you train them? I can't do anything with Ben, he's so rough."
Joyce was blotted out by a merciful hooded raincoat. As she struggled through its dark rubber-smelling folds she could hear voices coming down from above.
"Alec, say good-bye to your little cousins—no, we must say your big cousins, mustn't we?"
"Thank Mrs. Richmond for such a nice party."
"Thank you, Mrs. Richmond, for such a nice party."
"Martin, you haven't opened Joyce's present."
"I don't want to open it," murmured Martin sullenly. Then he knew he had said the wrong thing.
"Don't want to open it? Why of course you want to open it. We don't measure presents by their size, do we, Joyce?"
Joyce, almost escaped, was drawn again into the arena.
"Come, Alec, we'll see what Joyce has given Martin and then you must go."
"I can't untie it, the string's wet," muttered Martin.
The watching circle drew closer.
"Wet? Nonsense. Here, give it to me."
Unfolding of sodden paper. A mouse of soft grey plush, with little glassy eyes and a long silky tail. And two wheels under his stomach, a key to wind him by.
"Why, it's the mouse we saw in the window at the cigar store. Joyce was crazy about it."
"You see, Martin, she's given you a mouse because she wanted it so much for herself."
"It isn't very much, my dear, but there's so little to choose from, here in the country."
"It's like the mice we had on the nursery wallpaper," said Bunny, praising valiantly.
"Wind it up and see it run."
There are some situations that, once entered, must be carried through to the end. Martin wound. He could tell by the feel of the key that something was wrong.
"I'll play with it later," he said.
"Don't be so stubborn, Martin. We're all waiting to see it."
Joyce's gaze was riveted on the mouse. She remembered the ominous click in its vitals, when she had been giving it an ecstatic trial. But perhaps Martin, with the magic boys have in these matters, could make it go again, as it went—so thrillingly, in mouselike darts and curves—on the cigar-store floor.
Martin put it down, giving it a deft push. It ran a few inches and stopped.
"It runs fine," he said hastily. "But it won't go here on the rug."
"Let's see it," said Ben, whose mechanical sense was not satisfied by so brief an exhibition.
"It's mine," snapped Martin fiercely, and put it in his pocket.
"We really must go," said someone.
"Would you each like a piece of Martin's cake to take home?"
"Oh, no, thank you, I think they've had plenty."
"Did you make a wish?"
"No, we forgot," said Martin.
"Oh, what a pity. When you blow out the candles on a birthday cake you should always make a wish."
"Will it come true?"
"If it's a nice wish."
"Light them again and do it now," said one of the parents. The drill must be finished.
"Yes, do, before the children go."
"Will it work if you light them again?" asked Martin doubtfully.
"Every bit as well."
The ten candles were reassembled on the remaining sector of cake, and Martin, feeling very self-conscious, stood by while they were relit. His guests were pushed forward.
"All ready? Blow!"
There was a loud puffing. Bunny's blast, a little too late, blew a fragrant waver of smoke into his face.
"Did you wish?"
"Yes," said Martin, "I"
"You mustn't tell it! If you tell, it won't come true."
But he hadn't wished, yet. He wanted to wait a moment, to get it just right. As the children turned away, trooping toward the door, Martin made one hasty movement that no one saw. With a quick slice of the sharp cake-knife he cut off the tail of the plush mouse. Now it would always serve to remind him of the tailless mice in the room that was no longer a nursery. Then, with the snuff of smoking candles still in his nose, he wished.