National Velvet (6 page)

    
“Gallopin',” assented father round the stem of his pipe.

    
There was a pause.

    
“I dreamt it hit mother,” mumbled Velvet.

    
“You did?”

    
“Yes. But it
was
a horse. That wasn't the dream.”

    
“I just come up the street,” said Mi. “Yore ma's sitting with the blinds up, in the shop, totting up.”

    
“I'll go back,” said Velvet. “It was a dream.” She turned and saw Meredith's face come round the doorway from the dark stairs.

    
“I had a dream, Meredith,” she said. “I'm coming back.”

    
Mi put the collar down and crossing to Velvet bent down and felt her ankles. “Cold as railings,” he said. “I'll getchu a brick. Keep your stomach steady.” He disappeared into the kitchen and Velvet turned back to the stairs. Suddenly, at the stairhead something caught her jumping heart. She was back in the room again at her father's side, by his tipping, swaying chair.

    
“You all right, too, father?” she whispered. He put his arm round her and pulled her on his lap. “You get them teeth straight!” he said to her, and rocked her meditatively while his pipe smoked up through her cotton hair.

T
HE
back window on the yard was blocked with cactus pots. In front of the window stood the fern-table with two big ferns in brass holders.

    
The street window had pots of blue and red and pied cineraria standing along its shelf, looking like a Union Jack. The eastern light of the morning burst through the cactus greenery on Mally laying the table with a darned and yellowing cloth. She clattered the crockery on from the sideboard, and the girls' voices called from the larder and kitchen.

    
“Mice bin at the bottom. . . . It's all run out!”

    
“Mice where?”

    
“Porridge packet. They've made a hole.”

    
“Don't cut the rim off the toast, 'Dwina. I like 'em with the binding.”

    
Mi looked in with a packet in his hand. “Whur's Velvet?”

    
“VelVET!”

    
“Coming down now.”

    
“Mi's got your pumice.”

    
“Mi?” said Velvet, coming through the attic stair door. “Oh, thank you, Mi.”

    
“Do it now,” said Mi.

    
“Clean my plate before breakfast!” said Velvet, outraged.

    
“Yer pa's sure to ask.”

    
“I do it AFTER breakfast! What's the good a-doing it before!”

    
“Acids of the night,” said Mi and disappeared.

    
“Acids of what?”

    
“Get on an' do it,” said Mally.

    
“You'd think that plate was jewellery!” said Velvet and went into the scullery.

    
“Cost more than your mother's engagement ring,” said Mr. Brown, passing through to the slaughter-house. “She grumbling again?”

    
“Gone to clean it,” said Mally. “Kedgeree!”

    
Mother brought in the soup basin of kedgeree. Donald stumped near her skirts. Edwina and Velvet came in and, sitting down, began to eat.

    
“I bin sick in the night,” said Donald.

    
“You haven't,” said Mrs. Brown. “Get on your chair.”

    
“Why haven't I?” demanded Donald.

    
“Don't let him start whying!” said Mally.

    
“Why haven't I, I say?” demanded Donald. “Tell me why, I say?”

    
“Get on to your chair and don't let's hear any more about it,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“Why haven't I, I say?” Donald held on. “You changed my sheets. The new ones was cold.”

    
“I changed your sheets for other reasons,” said Mrs. Brown. “Now get on.”

    
“The new ones was horrible,” muttered Donald, subsiding. “Is it kedgeree?”

    
“Did you wash your neck, Velvet?”

    
“Yes, mother.”

    
“Before your frock or after your frock?”

    
“After.”

    
“Then don't. Your frock's soaking. Where's Meredith?”

    
“Canary's loose.”

    
Mr. Brown opened the door again and came in.

    
Donald brightened. “I was sick in the night, daddy.”

    
“Donald!”

    
“I was sick all over . . .”

    
Mrs. Brown removed Donald and the kedgeree to the kitchen.

    
“Lie. He wet his bed,” said Mally.

    
“Oh,” said Mr. Brown and helped himself to kedgeree. “I heard your mother moving about. Why don't she leave him wet. He won't hurt. He's no more than damp.”

    
“Bad for his habits,” said Mrs. Brown, returning. She sat down and drew the marmalade towards her.

    
“I've caught her!” Meredith came in glowing.

    
“Take your kedgeree into the kitchen and let Donald tell you how sick he's been,” said Velvet.

    
“You'll do no such thing,” said Mrs. Brown. “That child gets on one idea like a railway track. It's you and your stomach, Velvet, that puts him onto it.”

    
“Can't help my stomach,” said Velvet. “ 'D'give anything in the world to change it.”

    
“You'll grow out of it.”

    
“Sixteen, you said.”

    
“Sixteen, I said.”

    
“Why sixteen?”

    
“You eat,” said Mrs. Brown.

    
“Can I come back now?” Donald appeared in the doorway, holding his plate unsteadily in his fists.

    
“Yes, if you've finished.”

    
“I've finished.”

    
“All?”

    
“All except the bones. Jacob's eaten them.”

    
“Oh . . .” Velvet flew up and left the room. “Mi!” she called into the yard from the kitchen. “Jacob's eaten fish-bones!”

    
Donald lifted his plate to the sideboard and the spoon flew over his head to the floor.

    
“That child say he finished?” demanded Mr. Brown.

    
“I finished,” said Donald.

    
“It's all on his plate still,” said Mr. Brown, and went on reading his paper.

    
“Velvet!” called Mally. “It's a do, Velvet! Come back. Jacob hasn't got a bone.”

    
Velvet appeared in the doorway.

    
“Donald,” said Mrs. Brown, turning full on him, “have you told me a story?”

    
“It
was
a story,” said Donald gravely.

    
“Do you know what a story is?”

    
“No,” said Donald.

    
Mrs. Brown removed him to her bedroom.

    
“Piebald's gone down the street again,” said Mi, putting his hair in at the door and disappearing. The four sisters rose and streamed from the room. Mr. Brown glancing up once and half turning round, went on with his paper. Mrs. Brown returned.

    
“Donald sorry?” said Mr. Brown.

    
“He's thinking,” said Mrs. Brown. “He isn't sure. Girls gone?”

    
“That piebald of Ede's got loose again,” said Mr. Brown. There was peace and silence.

    
The tiny windowpane between the cineraria was filled with black and white and the piebald went back up the street at a hand gallop. After his metal feet the street rustled with running shoes.

    
“That animal'll knock down a pram one of these days,” observed Mr. Brown. “Seems to make for the sea.”

    
“Curious horse,” said Mrs. Brown. “Climbs out in the night when the moon's up.”

    
“Don't he jump?” said Mr. Brown.

    
“Jumps a house,” said Mrs. Brown. “Sort of rodeo, so they say. . . . Yes, Donald? What is it?”

    
“I'm sorry,” called Donald in muffled tones through the door.

    
Mrs. Brown opened the door.

    
“I'm sorry I was sick in the night,” said Donald.

    
“Child'll make a lawyer,” said Mr. Brown.

    
Meredith returned to the room.

    
“He went right through the poles they're hammering up for the Fair,” she said. “Then down to the Post Office, an' slid about and up the Chalk Road back on to the Hullocks again. Mr. Ede was just going by 'n his cart. Cursed.”

    
“He'll get into trouble if that horse hurts someone,” said father. “Mi done his breakfast?”

    
“Had it early. He's got given a glass tongue. Ate it in his room.”

    
“Well, tell'm I want'm at twelve for six sheep.” Mr. Brown passed away through the slaughter-house door. Mi came in from the street.

    
“Six sheep at twelve, father says.”

    
“M'm. Piebald jumped a five bar gate with a wire on the top. Sailed over.”

    
“Who says so?”

    
“Fellow.”

    
“Is it broke?”

    
“The gate?”

    
“No. The piebald.”

    
“Ede says it's as quiet as a lamb. Just can't bear to be shut up. Bit mad.”

    
Mi blew his nose carefully, polished it, replaced his handkerchief and went for the yard door.

    
“You got a bit a time?” said Meredith.

    
“Get on an' do your canaries. Gotter sweep my room.”

    
“Done my canaries. I'll come an' sweep yours.”

    
Mi sniffed and went off. Meredith caught up a broom which stood beside the wall.

    
“You put that down,” said Mi, who knew she had taken it without turning his head. “S'yer ma's own.” The broom was meekly put back. Meredith followed him.

    
Mi's room was outside, next to Miss Ada. It was an old loose box that had fallen into disrepair. He took great pride in it and kept it spotless. Just within the door, which was propped open for freshness with a garden rake, was a large hole in the floor filled with rotting wood. The wood round the edges of the hole gave way like toast and Mi had marked a white ring round the hole and written in paint “Step further than this.” He took his own broom and began to sweep.

    
“S'got no hairs on it,” said Meredith, standing about and in the way.

    
No answer. Mi did not like criticism. He swept the dust of the room vigorously into a heap, then propelled it with his brush over a portion of the painted line and into the hole in the floor. Picking up an old milk bottle by the neck he rammed the dust horizontally under the floor boards.

    
“Now whadjer want?” he said.

    
“Hammer'n nails,” said Meredith.

    
“Go out of the room then. Thurs no call fer you to see where I keep things.”

    
Meredith went outside into the sunny yard and stood with her back to the wall on the far side of the door. Honourably she looked away and straight before her. Mi went to his bed and abstracted a hammer and tobacco box of nails from under his mattress.

    
“How big?” he called.