Donkey Boy (5 page)

For days the animals were to be seen, walking lethargically upon sett-stone and wooden block of various London streets, until one morning many men in white coats at every corner it seemed, were selling copies of the first number of
The
Daily
Trident,
getting rid of them as fast as they could collect and pouch brown copper coins bearing the heads of Queen Victoria, William IV, the Georges, and even a small greenish ha'penny, on its face the words
The
Anglesea
Mines
1788,
and on its rim
Payable
in
Anglesea,
London
or
Liverpool.
Richard secured his copy with this antique but legal coin, which he had received in change somewhere, and folded it carefully for inspection of its value later on. His own paper was
The
Morning
Post,
the only true Tory newspaper for him.

The first thing he read, during his luncheon interval of forty
minutes, decided at once for him that it was the sort of paper he had always wanted to read. It startled him. There was the truth about Mr. Turney, his father-in-law, to a T! Later in the evening of the same day he cut out the piece and gummed it upon the fly-leaf of his pocket diary.

“And I bet everything I possess that the impostor was Mr. Thomas William Turney!” had muttered Richard to himself, recalling the story Hetty had told him in the summer-house of her garden, before they had decided to be married in secret, owing to the choleric opposition of her respected parent. The story was that she had been coming home from her school in Belgium, when upon arrival at Dover, Mr. Turney, on hearing that the Prince of Wales was expected from Paris, had had the cheek to walk off the boat before all the other passengers, and passing down between the lines of cheering people, he had raised his hat to left and right, while smoking a large cigar. The impostor had reached the train waiting in the station with hands in pocket and bearded chin held close into his buttoned ulster, in order to be lost among the crowd.

That story, for his son-in-law Richard, illustrated the entire
character of the old man. Mr. Turney was an impostor—a humbug—a hypocrite—a charlatan—a bogus fellow. Had he not brazenly assumed the coat armour of the extinct Norman family of Le Tournet, while his son Hugh, according to Theodora, even claimed to be the heir to a barony in abeyance? That was the family he had, in a period of loneliness after Mother's death, married into!

Now, towards the end of the third year of his marriage, Richard Maddison had arrived at the conclusion that no spiritual or mental communication with Hetty, or with any other Turney, was possible; and since he knew no one else, apart from the fellows at the office,
The
Daily
Trident,
with its reiterated, almost pronged policy of fidelity to King, Country, and Empire through the triple virtues of Faith, Hope, and Vigilance, was the bedfellow of his mind. Let radicals call it the Yellow Press; he knew the truth when he saw it: he had a mind of his own in such matters.

“M
INNIE
Mummie, Minnie Mummie, Minnie Mummie!”

Hetty stopped at the head of the stairs. The plaintive voice almost whispered down the passage. Sonny was in his cot. The door was half open. He was frightened when it was closed.

“I am just coming, Sonny. Mummie just coming.”

“Minnie Mummie, p’e.”

The word
minnie
meant a kiss. Or an embrace. Or security, affection, safety. Hetty knew this. She loved Minnie now, the two women sometimes embraced. It was sad that Minnie was soon to go away. Her father was ill and lonely in the Black Forest country, and at last his only daughter was going home. She would wait to see the Gnadige Frau safely delivered of her little one, and strong again on her feet, before she left.

Minnie’s father had had a stroke, and she must not delay the journey. Such tears, such a commotion of feeling! She must return to her dear father. Bayen called her to the smell of the pine trees once more, to the yoked oxen; but never, never would she forget her little ganschen, her little gosling who was
not,
as his pappy declared, an eselfunge, a donkey boy!

Much as she loved Minnie, Hetty could never bring herself to tell her her own secret name she had for Sonny—Little Mouse. For his eyes were round and big, like those of the little mouse which had so terrified her in the front room at Comfort House, before she knew what it was, when it had opened the sitting-room door one night before her baby was born. She had watched it gathering wool from the mat for its nest, and taking it down the hole by the pipe in the floor. But Hetty had given away her secret unwittingly. She had asked Minnie what was the German word for mouse; and Minnie exclaimed, “Ach, the small mouse among the corn is what he is to you, his true mother. Haselmaus! His nest bound to the Dinkelweizen!” And Minnie had laughed merrily with Hetty, while Phillip jumped and laughed with the happiness in the faces above him.

Now Haselmaus was wanting his true Mummy!

Going along the passage, Hetty opened the door. Little Mouse was standing up in his cot. Golly was flung on the floor, beside Hanky. She stooped with difficulty to pick them up. Beside them was a child’s book of lithographed pictures,
Streuvelpeter,
which Dickie had given him for his birthday present, with the words in English. (Would he have bought it if he had known that the Firm had printed the book? There was the name at the bottom of the last page,
Mallard
,
Carter
and
Turney
Ltd.,
Sparhawk
Street,
Holborn,
London,
E.C.
)

There was something about the book that faintly distressed Hetty, with its pictures of the stumps of poor Peter’s thumbs dripping blood after a tailor’s shears had snipped them off, because he had sucked them; it might have happened to Sonny, and all because she had not been able to—— Still, that was life, she supposed. Habits of carelessness or forgetfulness did lead to frightful fates, sometimes. But was not Sonny too young to think of another boy being carried into the air, shot by a fox, or drowned over a quay? Would it not frighten Sonny, and perhaps give him nightmares? But Hetty had not dared to speak like this to her husband; she had hardly dared even to think it to herself.

Having comforted the child, who had thrown out his cherished objects in order to bring her to him for a kiss, she settled him down in his cot with a piece of barley sugar, with Golly and Hanky beside him, and Thumb ready to follow the sweet. Before leaving the room, she hid
Streuvelpeter
on the top shelf of the cupboard, under her folded piles of disused clothing that she was keeping to make into clothes for the children.

She went slowly along the passage, and down the stairs to
the sitting-room, to rest, for her labour pains were upon her.

Minnie had already gone to leave a message at Dr. Cave-Browne’s, and to warn Mrs. Birkett, the midwife, in the High Road beyond. Mrs. Bigge next door had promised to keep an eye on Hetty. Every now and then she called out, quietly but cheerfully, from her back door, into the open southern window of the Maddisons’ sitting-room.

“Are you there, Mrs. Emm? Are you all right, dear? There now, of course you are! Now tell me, would you like me to pop in and make you a nice cup of tea?”

Hetty would like nothing better. The little woman went on, “Josiah, my hubby, says I am an inveterate popper, In and Out Again he calls me; but it’s best to be neighbourly while we can be, don’t you think, dear?”

“Oh yes; thank you ever so much for coining in,” replied Hetty, laughing with relief, because Mrs. Bigge as a popper seemed so funny. She thought of a vetch pod popping in the sun; Mrs. Bigge’s shape was that of a pea pod, from her square-piled hair to the square-cut end of skirt above black button boots. Mrs. Bigge noticed Hetty’s glance at her boots, for she said:

“No trailing dust on my skirts, dear; why bring part of the street with you into the house? Let them have their fashions, and I will have mine.” Mrs. Bigge’s personality popped like a black vetch pod ripe in the sun. And like the pea in bloom, she was fragrant; and then Hetty turned away from her fancy. She was in pain again.

Through the floor came a faint thud. Down the stairs floated a cry.

“Minnie p’e, Minnie p’e Mummie, Minnie p’e Mummie.”

“Ah, the little pet!” exclaimed Mrs. Bigge, popping out of the chair. “Is it his rest-time-dear? If not, let me bring him down, dear. Aunty will take care of him.” She went up the stairs, calling out in her deep voice, “Auntie is coming, dear! Auntie is coming! I know where you are, in the end room; many’s the time I’ve heard your little voice through the open window. It’s your new Auntie, dear, just coming!”

Mrs. Bigge went smilingly to the boy. He stood clasping the wooden rail, a mournful look in his face that went straight to her heart. A tear lay on one cheek. Then she saw the reason: the boy had messed himself.

She lifted him out of the cot, and carried him into the bathroom. “I’m just giving his hands and face a little wash, dear,” she called down the stairs. “He’ll soon be right as rain.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bigge.”

She ran some water into the basin and washed the boy, wondering why he was so very thin. Was he getting enough food? She had some cream-buns, and would bring one in for him.

“Do you like cream buns, dear? What would you say if Auntie were to give you a nice cream bun?”

The child did not reply. She lifted him down from the basin; he was rigid, holding himself away from her. She sat him on her knee, and dried him on a towel that smelt faintly of tobacco and bay rum.

Down in the kitchen, Hetty wondered what was going on up in the bathroom. She heard the water-closet rattle, and the flush of water.

“A little accident, dear, my little pet has had, but we have put it all right, haven’t we?” said Mrs. Bigge, arriving with the child in her arms. “He is such a good little man, aren’t you, dear?”

The child was less rigid. He had a dread of messing himself, nearly as great as his dislike of being placed upon his small round enamel pot, that so restricted movement when he felt he
must
move. He was afraid of movement at times. When he had slept in the cot beside his mother sometimes a terrifying loneliness had overcome him; but he had been afraid to call to her to bring her over him, for the safety of her face, because Daddy might be cross with Mummie.

When he had called to Minnie from his cot beside her, Minnie had taken him into bed with her. She had cuddled him. Minnie was too hot, and her arms stopped him from moving when he wanted to. “Oh, do lie still, lieb’ ganschen, and let Minnie sleep.” So he would lie still, rigidly motionless. Perhaps Minnie might realise that her gosling with the faraway blue eyes was weeping in silence, but why was that? Ach, perhaps he had a tummy-pain! His head was hot. So at six o’clock next morning there was another ordeal, a brown thick liquid to be swallowed out of a cup, with a horrid smell, called licorice powder. And after his bread and milk for breakfast, Minnie had sat him on his pot, while changing her yellow skirt to a black one. Then putting on cloak and bonnet, she said he must be quick, quick! for the storch was coming today, to bring him a little brother, or a little sister. And she must go for the good doctor, and he must be quick, lieb’ ganschen.

“Try, dear one, try,
try
——” and Minnie made a growling noise, which was to stimulate trying.

Nothing had happened. She put him back in the cot, telling him to be a good boy while she was gone, and to try not to call Mummie, as Mummie was not well. Minnie would not be long. Minnie would come back to her little gosling.

Try meant being good boy on pot, try was what he did in pot. Minnie come back. Ganschen—gosling—little mouse—Sonny—Donkey Boy must do big try in pot for Minnie, lie still for Minnie Mummie, oh-be-quiet-ganschen.

Then the pains again, loneliness, pot pot pot, Minnie p’e Mummie, Minnie Mummie, Minnie p’e, Minnie come p’e; all voicelessly in his mind.

At last, in fear the child sent out his calls for help. First Golly, then Hanky, then “Minnie Mummie!” Overwhelming shame, grizzling and sobbing, until Auntie made it all better again. Clean, clean! He trusted himself to Aunty Bigge, sitting serenely in her arms.

And when Minnie came back, jump jump jump for joy; and a horse came with a big man in a cart of black and a man with a black bag came in and said “Hullo, little fellow, how are you today, it seems only yesterday I was launching you into the world, now be good boy and don’t annoy”, and Mrs. Feeney came and Mrs. Bottle Black Drink came (Phillip watching the midwife pouring out porter from a flagon and refreshing herself) and Mummie was in bed and he must play in the garden. He went to look at Mrs. Bottle Black Drink in the kitchen. She was not there, but her bottle was. He took what he thought of as its hat off the bottle’s head, and after poking his finger in the neck, licked it, not liking the taste; but fascinated by the black pouring, he tilted the bottle on
the floor. It was nice black splash. Having splattered it about, he remembered Daddy-things, and hurried out into the garden.

He found the scraper, and did some digging and splashing and then what Daddy did and was a Goodboyanddontannoy when he stood the scraper against the wall beside Daddy’s spade, Daddy’s fork, Daddy’s rake, Daddy’s trowel, Daddy’s hoe. And it was nice and safe with many people-faces in the house and no one telling him he must not, and new Auntie’s cream bun. And Daddy kissed him and silver sweetie went
crack
crack
with Daddy’s white penknife and told him he had a little sister and Phillip thought that was the new name of the sweet and liked little sister and Grannie gave him new shiny shilling for his money box which rattled and he went by-byes with it and Golly. And Hanky goodasgold.

That evening Richard did not see the wooden scraper standing
in line, so neatly with the other garden implements; for Minnie, seeing it first, had fastened it back in its place on the handle of the spade. Hetty had told her of the previous scraper, and of the trouble it had very nearly brought.

The Hill, once a place where a fellow might walk with some degree of privacy, was fast becoming spoiled, in Richard’s eyes. The forty acres had been fenced in with iron railings. There were gravel paths, iron gates at the various entrances, notice boards with the rules and regulations of the London County Council printed upon them, and varnished over against the weather. There were seats at intervals. Upon the crest a bandstand now stood.

Hither on summer evenings swarmed the masses, as Richard thought of them: the great unwashed from the slums on the low ground south of the river. Hundreds, thousands of men and women arrived with pale-faced unwashed brats in mailcarts and soap-boxes on wheels every Thursday evening during the summer, to hear the Band playing. Sometimes a breeze brought the strains of brassy music as he toiled during the long evenings in the garden.

The little garden, in size between five and six square poles, was Richard’s delight. He had a pet hedgehog which lived in the rough grasses and old leaves at the bottom of the fence. It ate the big black slugs, and could be seen, and heard, rustling and grunting in the twilight. It came forth to a saucer of milk. There was a brown owl, too, that flew in the half light to a branch of one of the elms in the waste land over the fence, where was a black soil he dug up and tipped over in pailfuls, for the making of a meat-soil. Otherwise it was a deadly kind of land he was trying to convert for vegetables and flowers.

The first thing he had done was to dig up the top spit, for a bare fallow. Now the yellow clay was baked hard, the ends of bindweed roots brown and withered in the clots turned up by the spade. Ugh, ugly London clay! Soil of fogs and bricks, rows of brick houses being run up everywhere by the jerry builders. The view from the Hill, which he crossed every day to and from the station, was becoming ugly. There he was, part of it all. Gone were the hopes of Hetty on a bicycle beside him, pedalling into the countryside. He must go alone; or not at all.

On Thursday evenings the crest of the Hill swarmed with shouting children, unwashed faces, pale and grimy, little girls wearing hats and coats and boots cast-off from their elders. In the late twilights of the summer evenings the southern slopes held their scores of dark and faceless couples lying unmoving in the grass: an objectionable, almost an offensive sight. For Richard liked to be alone with hi& thoughts on the Hill; he never thought that perhaps the couples on the grass had similar ideas.

On Thursday evenings the great attraction was the Crystal Palace firework display. From the ridge a couple of miles or so distant rockets arose and broke into sprays of colours, inducing from the dim slopes long-drawn
oo-hs!
and
ah-ahs!
of wonder and admiration. The swarming of the masses out of their sunless streets was a sign of the times, the end of an age, the beginning of the masses becoming vocal. Already agitators were busy. On Sunday afternoons, by the oak on the eastern part of the Hill, speakers ranted and held forth on the woes of the workers, and more than one red flag was unfurled. Richard had gone up one Sunday to listen, and had told Hetty, on his return, that all he had heard was prejudice, ignorance, and soap-box hot-air. Still, it was letting off steam, and free speech was the Englishman’s right. But the utter rubbish that was spouted there! The usual socialistic nonsense, that Jack was as good as his master! Liberalism under Gladstone had paved the way for Labour agitation, which led to Socialism, and so to the terrors of class-warfare and Communism.