Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London, to see the
Queen.
Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you
there?
I caught a little mouse under the
chair.
Her mother said it three times.
And each time the Baby Harriett laughed. The sound of her laugh was
so funny that she laughed again at that; she kept on laughing, with
shriller and shriller squeals.
“I wonder why she thinks it’s
funny,” her mother said.
Her father considered it. “I
don’t know. The cat perhaps. The cat and the Queen. But no; that
isn’t funny.”
“She sees something in it we
don’t see, bless her,” said her mother.
Each kissed her in turn, and the
Baby Harriett stopped laughing suddenly.
“Mamma, did Pussycat see the
Queen?”
“No,” said Mamma. “Just when the
Queen was passing the little mouse came out of its hole and ran
under the chair. That’s what Pussycat saw.”
Every evening before bedtime she
said the same rhyme, and Harriett asked the same question.
When Nurse had gone she would lie
still in her cot, waiting. The door would open, the big pointed
shadow would move over the ceiling, the lattice shadow of the
fireguard would fade and go away, and Mamma would come in carrying
the lighted candle. Her face shone white between her long, hanging
curls. She would stoop over the cot and lift Harriett up, and her
face would be hidden in curls. That was the kiss-me-to-sleep kiss.
And when she had gone Harriett lay still again, waiting. Presently
Papa would come in, large and dark in the firelight. He stooped and
she leapt up into his arms. That was the kiss-me-awake kiss; it was
their secret.
Then they played. Papa was the
Pussycat and she was the little mouse in her hole under the
bed-clothes. They played till Papa said, “No more!” and tucked the
blankets tight in.
“Now you’re kissing like Mamma
——”
Hours afterwards they would come
again together and stoop over the cot and she wouldn’t see them;
they would kiss her with soft, light kisses, and she wouldn’t
know.
She thought: To-night I’ll stay
awake and see them. But she never did. Only once she dreamed that
she heard footsteps and saw the lighted candle, going out of the
room; going, going away.
The blue egg stood on the marble
top of the cabinet where you could see it from everywhere; it was
supported by a gold waistband, by gold hoops and gold legs, and it
wore a gold ball with a frill round it like a crown. You would
never have guessed what was inside it. You touched a spring in its
waistband and it flew open, and then it was a workbox. Gold
scissors and thimble and stiletto sitting up in holes cut in white
velvet.
The blue egg was the first thing
she thought of when she came into the room. There was nothing like
that in Connie Hancock’s Papa’s house. It belonged to Mamma.
Harriett thought: If only she
could have a birthday and wake up and find that the blue egg
belonged to her ——
Ida, the wax doll, sat on the
drawing-room sofa, dressed ready for the birthday. The darling had
real person’s eyes made of glass, and real eyelashes and hair.
Little finger and toenails were marked in the wax, and she smelt of
the lavender her clothes were laid in.
But Emily, the new birthday doll,
smelt of composition and of gum and hay; she had flat, painted hair
and eyes, and a foolish look on her face, like Nurse’s aunt, Mrs.
Spinker, when she said “Lawk-a-daisy!” Although Papa had given her
Emily, she could never feel for her the real, loving love she felt
for Ida.
And her mother had told her that
she must lend Ida to Connie Hancock if Connie wanted her.
Mamma couldn’t see that such a
thing was not possible.
“My darling, you mustn’t be
selfish. You must do what your little guest wants.”
“I can’t.”
But she had to; and she was sent
out of the room because she cried. It was much nicer upstairs in
the nursery with Mimi, the Angora cat. Mimi knew that something
sorrowful had happened. He sat still, just lifting the root of his
tail as you stroked him. If only she could have stayed there with
Mimi; but in the end she had to go back to the drawing-room.
If only she could have told Mamma
what it felt like to see Connie with Ida in her arms, squeezing her
tight to her chest and patting her as if Ida had been her child.
She kept on saying to herself that Mamma didn’t know; she didn’t
know what she had done. And when it was all over she took the wax
doll and put her in the long narrow box she had come in, and buried
her in the bottom drawer in the spare-room wardrobe. She thought:
If I can’t have her to myself I won’t have her at all. I’ve got
Emily. I shall just have to pretend she’s not an idiot.
She pretended Ida was dead; lying
in her pasteboard coffin and buried in the wardrobe cemetery.
It was hard work pretending that
Emily didn’t look like Mrs. Spinker.
