Part 8 (1/2)
”She kickened and fit me, she did,” Tony mumbled moodily as he climbed into his cot: ”Can't I box her nor nothing?”
”Not now,” Jan said, soothingly. Ayah salaamed and hurried away. She, at all events, had cause to bless Jan, for now she got her meals with fair regularity and in peace.
In a few minutes the room was as quiet as an empty church, save for a low voice that related an interminable story about ”c.o.c.kie-Lockie and Henny-Penny going to tell the King the lift's fallen,” till one, at all events, of the ”blawlers” was sound asleep.
The voice ceased and Tony's head appeared over the rail of his cot.
”Hus.h.!.+” Jan whispered. ”Sister's asleep. Just wait a few minutes till Ayah comes, then I'll take you away with me.”
Faithful Ayah didn't dawdle over her food. She returned, sat down on the floor beside little Fay's cot and started her endless mending.
Jan carried Tony away with her along the pa.s.sage and into the drawing-room. The verandah was too hot in the early afternoon.
”Now what shall we do?” she asked, with a sigh, as she sat down on the big sofa. ”_I'd_ like to sleep, but I suppose you won't let me.”
Tony got off her knee and looked at her gravely.
”You can,” he said, magnanimously, ”because you brought me. I hate bed.
I'll build a temple with my bricks and I won't knock it down. Not loud.”
And like his aunt he did what he said.
Jan put her feet up and lay very still. For a week now she had risen early every morning to take the children out in the freshest part of the day. She seldom got any rest in the afternoon, as she saw to it that they should be quiet to let Fay sleep, and she went late to bed because the cool nights in the verandah were the pleasant time for Fay.
Tony murmured to himself, but he made little noise with his stone bricks. And presently Jan was sleeping almost as soundly as her obstreperous niece.
Tony did not repeat new words aloud as did his sister. He turned them over in his mind and treasured some simply because he liked the sound of them.
There were two that he had carried in his memory for nearly half his life; two that had for him a mysterious fascination, a vaguely agreeable significance that he couldn't at all explain. One was ”Piccadilly” and the other ”Coln St. Aldwyn's.” He didn't even know that they were the names of places at first, but he thought they had a most beautiful sound. Gradually the fact that they were places filtered into his mind, and for Tony Piccadilly seemed particularly rural. He connected it in some way with the duck-slaying Mrs. Bond of the Baby's Opera, a book he and Mummy used to sing from before she grew too tired and sad to sing.
Before she lay so many hours in her long chair, before the big man he called Daddie became so furtive and disturbing. Then Mummy used to tell him things about a place called Home, and though she never actually mentioned Piccadilly he had heard the word very often in a song that somebody sang in the drawing-room at Dariawarpur.
Theatricals had been towards and Mummy was acting, and people came to practise their songs with her, for not only did she sing herself delightfully, but she played accompaniments well for other people. The play was a singing play, and the a.s.sistant Superintendent of Police, a small, fair young man with next to no voice and a very clear enunciation, continually practised a song that described someone as walking ”down Piccadilly with a tulip or a lily in his mediaeval hand.”
Tony rather liked ”mediaeval” too, but not so much as Piccadilly. A flowery way, he was sure, with real gra.s.s in it like the Resident's garden. Besides, the ”dilly” suggested ”daffy-down dilly come up to town in a yellow petticoat and a green gown.”
But not even Piccadilly could compete with Coln St. Aldwyn's in Tony's affections. There was something about that suggestive of exquisite peace and loveliness, no mosquitoes and many friendly beasts. He had only heard the word once by chance in connection with the mysterious place called Home, in some casual conversation when no one thought he was listening. He seized upon it instantly and it became a priceless possession, comforting in times of stress, soothing at all times, a sort of refuge from a real world that had lately been very puzzling for a little boy.
He was certain that at Coln St. Aldwyn's there was a mighty forest peopled by all the nicest animals. Dogs that were ever ready to extend a welcoming paw, elephants and mild clumsy buffaloes that gave good milk to the thirsty. Little grey squirrels frolicked in the branches of the trees, and the tiny birds Mummy told him about that lived in the yew hedge at Wren's End. Tony had himself been to Wren's End he was told, but he was only one at the time, and beyond a feeling that he liked the name and that it was a very green place his ideas about it were hazy.
Sometimes he wished it had been called ”Wren St. Endwyn's,” but after mature reflection he decided it was but a poor imitation of the real thing, so he kept the two names separate in his mind.
He had added two more names to his collection since he came to Bombay.
”Mahaluxmi,” the road running beside the sea, where Peter sometimes took them and Auntie Jan for a drive after tea when it was high tide; and ”Taraporevala,” who owned a famous book-shop in Medow Street where he had once been in a tikka-gharri with Auntie Jan to get some books for Mummy. Peter had recommended the shop, and the name instantly seized upon Tony's imagination and will remain with it evermore. He never for one moment connected it with the urbane gentleman in eyegla.s.ses and a funny little round hat who owned the shop. For Tony ”Taraporevala” will always suggest endless vistas of halls, fitted with books, shelves, and tall stacks of books, and counters laden with piles of books. It seemed amazing to find anything so vast in such a narrow street. There was something magic about it, like the name. Tony was sure that some day when he should explore the forest of Coln St. Aldwyn he would come upon a little solid door in a great rock. A little solid door studded with heavy nails and leading to a magic cave full of unimaginable treasure.
This door should only open to the incantation of ”Taraporevala.” None of your ”abracadabras” for him.
And just as Mummy had talked much of ”Wren's End” in happier days, so now Auntie Jan told them endless stories about it and what they would all do there when they went home. Some day, when he knew her better, he would ask her about Coln St. Aldwyn's. He felt he didn't know her intimately enough to do so yet, but he was gradually beginning to have some faith in her. She was a well-instructed person, too, on the whole, and she answered a straight question in a straight way.