Familiar and Haunting Page 6

  Her mother came hurrying—but, equally, on a careful route—to meet her. When she saw the state my aunt was in, she turned back, crying that she would start to run a bath for her at once. In the meantime her father was preparing to untie Spot from his tree and tidy away the tin bath, the scrubbing brush, the soap, and the bluebag. He paused as my aunt drew level with him. He said, “You’ll need this, my girl,” and handed her the bluebag.

  At this point in her story my aunt Carrie became triumphant. Above the roar of the washing machine, she would shout, “I said I’d let you into the secret of the bluebag—its second use. You don’t know? You haven’t guessed? In those days bluebag was used against bites and stings. My mother always dabbed it, wet, on a wasp sting to soothe the pain and the swelling.

  “So, after my bath, there was I with runny blue blotches all over my face and arms and legs. My little dog came to see me, and my father—who always thought he had a great sense of humor—said he couldn’t tell us apart for the spots. He called us Spot the Dog and Spot the Daughter.”

  My aunt Carrie would laugh heartily, then sometimes would add thoughtfully: “But I remember that it didn’t seem funny at the time.”

  The Nest Egg

  School was dreary for William Penney. He was no good there. He was no good at lessons or at games, and he was no good at making new friends. Teachers, privately warned to make allowances for him, found him difficult in a dull way. His worst stroke of luck turned out to be his name. Nothing wrong with William, you might think, but another—and better-liked—boy in the class had the same name. Everybody said he had first claim to it, since William Penney was the newcomer. So what was William Penney to be called?

  Someone, with a snigger, suggested Willy, and then everybody sniggered. William did not mind much; as long as they left him alone, he could bear sniggerings.

  But then someone said, “Well, he’s got a second name, hasn’t he? W. H. Penney—he wrote his name once like that. I saw it. Come on, Willy! If you don’t want to be called Willy, what does H stand for?”

  “I don’t mind being called Willy,” said William.

  “What does H stand for?”

  “It’s just my father’s name.”

  “Well, what is your father’s name?”

  He didn’t want to tell them. He didn’t want them to know his father’s name, because his father was all he had now, and even he was away somewhere. His mother had died.

  “I’d rather be called Willy, please.”

  But now they knew he did not want to tell them, they tormented him. “Come on, what is it? Is it Hugh? Or Hubert? Or Herbert?”

  “Or Halibut!” suggested a wit, and the same boy went on: “Or is it Halgernon? Or Hebenezer?”

  So, after all, he was trapped by his own anger into telling them. Stammering in anger and haste, he cried, “It’s not a stupid name, it’s not! It’s just Hen—Hen—”

  Then they shouted with joyous laughter and called him Hen-Hen-Henny-penny and clucked at him and asked him what he had had for breakfast and, before he had time to answer, answered for him: “A hegg!”

  If they had only known, their teasing came near the truth. William Henry Penney really did have an egg for breakfast, whether he liked it or not, nearly every day of the week, because now he was living with his aunt Rosa, who kept hens. She ran her garden—almost as big as a smallholding—as a business. She grew all the usual outdoor vegetables and had a greenhouse for cucumbers and early tomatoes. At the bottom of the garden and in the orchard, she kept hens, not very many, but good layers. William helped with the hens, feeding them in the morning before he went to school, filling their drinking bowl with fresh water, and letting them out of their run to roam in his aunt’s orchard. He also collected the eggs in the evening, but this was only under Aunt Rosa’s supervision. He had once broken an egg.

  Until now Aunt Rosa had lived by herself, with her dog, Bessy. Aunt Rosa was middle-aged and sharp; Bessy was old and cantankerous. Neither of them was used to having children about the place.

  When William’s father had brought him here, he explained to his son that this was only until he could find another job in another place and a new home for them both. “Until then Rosa has said she’ll put up with you—I mean, put you up. Very kind of Rosa,” said William’s father. He did not usually think his sister was particularly kind.

  “Why’s she wearing that scarf of Mum’s?” asked William.

  His father frowned. He said, “She’s being very helpful in a bad time, and she asked if she could have it. It was one of the things she wanted.”

  “I don’t like her having things,” said William.

  “Oh, come on, William!” his father said angrily. But William was not deceived; really, his father was angry with Aunt Rosa for wanting things that had so recently belonged to her dead sister-in-law, his own wife, William’s mother. He was also angry with himself for having to give in to her.

  William’s father saw William settled in Aunt Rosa’s house. Then he said good-bye, leaving William with Aunt Rosa and Bessy.

  In Aunt Rosa’s house William had a bedroom to himself, but it was big and bare and lonely after his own old room crammed with his ancient toys and his collections and gadgets and oddments, all in a friendly muddle. He could not feel at home here, in Aunt Rosa’s house. Deliberately, he did not unpack his suitcase into the drawers left empty for him.

  Nowadays William was always watched; he knew that. In Aunt Rosa’s house he was watched by Aunt Rosa and by Bessy, in case he did anything silly, wasteful, or damaging. At school he was watched by those whose fun was to tease him. His only really safe and private time was in bed, at night. Every night he cried himself to sleep—but quietly, so that Aunt Rosa should not hear him and despise him for crying. He had sad dreams that woke him to real sadness. Then he cried for his father, who was far away, and for his mother, who was dead.

  One day, in the early evening, Aunt Rosa came down from her bedroom dressed with unusual care. Besides her good clothes, she was wearing a thin gold chain. William recognized it at once. He had saved up to buy it for his mother on her last birthday.

  He couldn’t help himself; he said, “That’s my mum’s gold chain.”

  “Yes,” said his aunt. “It was hers. It’s not real gold, of course. I wouldn’t have taken anything valuable from your father, when he pressed me to choose, after the funeral. The chain’s not worth anything—just rubbish. But it does for the odd occasion.”

  William said nothing aloud, but to himself he said, “I hate Aunt Rosa. I hate having to live in her house.”

  His aunt was dressed up to attend a parish meeting. Before she left, she said to William, “You should be able to help more on your own by now. Go down to the henhouse and see if there are any eggs. Probably not; the hens are all going off lay. But if there is an egg, for goodness’ sake, don’t break it! And don’t bring out the nest egg, as you did last time!” The nest egg was only an imitation egg; it was left in a nest to encourage the hen to lay other eggs there and nowhere else.

  Aunt Rosa went off on her bicycle, Bessy settled herself in her basket in the kitchen, and William went down the garden to the henhouse.

  He was still thinking of his mother’s gold chain. Of course, he had known that it wasn’t made of real gold, but his mother had loved to wear it. He remembered buying it and keeping it a secret until her birthday. In secret he had played with it, and he could still remember the way the thin links had poured and poured between his fingers. He remembered the way his mother had looked when she wore it, and now he hated to remember how it had looked around the neck of his aunt Rosa.

  Still thinking of the gold chain, he reached the henhouse.

  The henhouse was a low, wooden, homemade affair, very simple and rather ramshackle. It had a door at the back through which the egg collector could reach in. At the front was a pophole through which the hens and the cockerel went out into the run. The run had high chicken wire walls and a chicken wire door that
let into the orchard. The door was open, as usual in the summer daytime; William had already seen the cockerel and his hens pecking about in the grass of the orchard.

  He unlatched the henhouse door and peered in. It was always dim inside the henhouse, but there was not much to see, anyway. Just an earth floor with straw over it, in which the hens hollowed their nests; a perch across from side to side, for the fowls to roost on at night; and the daylight coming in through the pophole on the opposite side of the henhouse.

  For the first time, William was here without Aunt Rosa nagging him to hurry. He let his eyes accustom themselves to the twilight of the henhouse, and then he saw the eye watching him. It belonged to the one hen that, after all, had not gone out with the others into the orchard. She was crouching in a corner of the henhouse, deep in the straw, absolutely still, absolutely quiet, staring at him.

  The henhouse was not large, but it was quite big enough for a boy of William’s size to creep inside. He did so now, for the convenience of looking more thoroughly for any eggs. But he kept away from the hen sitting in her corner.

  The henhouse smelled of hens. There was a line of hen droppings in the straw under the perch; the straw would need changing soon. There was also the smell, brought out by the summer heat, of creosote in the wood. All the same, William rather liked being in the henhouse. It was a real house, in its way, and it was just his size. It fitted him; he felt at home in it.

  Being careful where he put his feet down in the straw, he searched for eggs. But as his aunt had prophesied, there were none.

  His search brought him to the sitting hen. Surely she must be sitting on something? As he had seen his aunt do, he slid his hand underneath her body to feel for any eggs, but at once she began to fluster and flounder and squawk. Her cries were immediately heard and answered from the orchard by the cockerel, who came running at a great pace and so appeared within seconds at the pophole, confronting William with furious enmity.

  Once, recently, Aunt Rosa had remarked in scorn that William couldn’t possibly be afraid of an ordinary cockerel, but Aunt Rosa was ignorant of a great many of life’s possibilities. In this present emergency, William withdrew from the henhouse very quickly indeed, latching the door shut behind him. He heard the cockerel and the hen conferring crossly inside.

  Meanwhile William had an egg in his hand—the only egg that had been under the hen. He opened his hand, and it was the nest egg, after all! A good thing that Aunt Rosa was not with him! By himself, he had time to look at the nest egg properly. It was made of earthenware, almost as smooth-surfaced as a real egg, and the same size and weight as a real egg. There were differences: the stamp of the maker’s name made an unevenness of surface in one place, and there was an airhole in the side, about the size of a hole down a drinking straw. And the nest egg was hollow.

  William handled the nest egg. He liked it, as he had liked being inside the henhouse. He liked the innocent trickery of it; he liked the neat little hole in its side, which was also the entry to its hollow interior. And as he studied the nest egg, an idea began to grow in his mind. …

  He pocketed the nest egg and went back indoors. The kitchen door was open, and Bessy watched him suspiciously from her basket, but she could see nothing wrong that he was doing. He went upstairs and into his bedroom and shut the door. He took the nest egg from his pocket and hid it at the bottom of his suitcase.

  He was in bed, waiting for sleep, when his aunt came back from her meeting. He heard her lock up, see to Bessy, and then come upstairs to her bedroom. Bessy came with her, because she slept at the foot of her bed at night. Aunt Rosa, with Bessy, went into the bedroom, and the door was shut behind them.

  Now Aunt Rosa would be getting ready for bed. She would take her best coat off and hang it in the wardrobe. She would take her shoes off. She would take her dress off—but no! Before she did that, she would take off William’s gold chain. She took it off and—well, where did she put it? Had she a jewel box for necklaces and brooches? Or did she put them into some special drawer? Or did she leave them on top of her dressing table, at least for the time being?

  Worrying at uncertainties, William fell into an uneasy sleep. He dreamed sad dreams, as usual, and the saddest—and the silliest, too—was that the nest egg had grown little chicken legs and climbed out of his suitcase and was running to catch his mother’s gold chain to eat it, as though it were a worm. But the nest egg never caught up with the gold chain.

  The next morning William was woken by his aunt’s calling from downstairs; his breakfast was ready. He dressed quickly and then went straight from his bedroom to his aunt’s room. Her door was open, and even from the doorway he could see that his mother’s gold chain lay coiled on the top of his aunt’s dressing table.

  Oh! He was in luck! He had only to cross the bedroom floor and pick up the chain, and it would be his.

  He took one step inside the bedroom doorway, and—he was out of luck, after all. He had forgotten that Bessy slept in his aunt’s room every night, and here she still was. She lay at the foot of the bed, watching him, and as he made that quick, furtive movement to enter the bedroom, Bessy growled. He knew that if he went any further, she would begin to bark—to shout to Aunt Rosa the alarm: “Thief! Thief!”

  He was bitterly disappointed, but he had no choice but to withdraw and go on downstairs. Just as usual he had his breakfast and then fed and watered the fowls and let them out of their run. When he got to school, just as usual, the boys called him Henny-penny and enjoyed their joke. The witty boy of the class sacrificed a small chocolate and marshmallow egg by putting it on William’s chair just before he sat down. School was hateful to William—as hateful as Aunt Rosa’s house.

  After school, Aunt Rosa had Willam’s tea ready for him.

  “I’ll just wash my hands upstairs in the bathroom,” he said.

  “No, you can do it at the kitchen sink. And after your tea, I’ve a job for you.”

  And after his tea, she said, “Today you can change the straw in the henhouse for me.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now!”

  “Shouldn’t I go and change out of my school clothes first?” asked William.

  Aunt Rosa stared at him suspiciously. “You’re not usually so fussy. …”

  William waited.

  “All right then,” said his aunt. “Change, but be quick about it. I’ll be getting you the barrow and the shovel out of the shed.”

  She went into the garden, followed by Bessy, and William went swiftly upstairs. The door of his aunt’s room was shut, but he opened it without hesitation. He knew he was safe, for he could hear the rattle of the wheelbarrow down the garden as his aunt maneuvered it out of the shed, and Bessy would be there with her, too.

  The gold chain had not been put away; it lay just as before on the top of the dressing table. He felt like crying as he picked it up; he had so longed to have it.

  He disturbed nothing else and shut his aunt’s bedroom door as he left. Then he went into his own room. One hand held the gold chain; he would not put it down for an instant. With the other hand he burrowed into his suitcase and brought out the nest egg. He turned the egg so that its airhole was uppermost. Then, with the fingers of his other hand, he found the free end of the gold chain and held it exactly above the airhole. He began to lower it toward the airhole, to feed it through, and it went through! He had foreseen correctly; the size was right.

  He went on dropping the gold chain, link by link, through the airhole of the nest egg. The links fell and fell and fell until there were no more, and the whole chain had disappeared inside the nest egg, and still the egg was not full. He shook the nest egg, and he could hear the supple chain shifting and settling inside its new home.

  “William!” his aunt shouted from the garden. He put the nest egg into his pocket and then had to take it out again, because he had forgotten that he was supposed to be changing into rough clothes. He changed quickly and, with the nest egg in a pocket, went down to the job in th
e henhouse. “For goodness’ sake, boy!” said his aunt. “I thought you were never coming! Here’s the barrow and shovel. Clean the shed right out, and barrow the soiled straw to the compost heap. Then fresh straw from the shed. I want to see the job well done. Oh! And mind the nest egg!”

  She left him to his work. The restrawing took some time, but William did well. His aunt had grudgingly to admit that when she inspected the inside of the henhouse. She also noted the presence of the nest egg, just where it should be.

  And William left it there.

  Aunt Rosa’s discovery of the loss of the gold chain was not made until the following morning. William was woken by his aunt shaking him. “I know you’ve taken it!” she was crying. “You’ve stolen my gold chain!” Bessy stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching the scene and growling softly.

  William managed to say, “I haven’t stolen it.”

  Of course, she did not believe him. She turned out all the pockets of his clothes. She unpacked his suitcase all over the floor. She took the mattress and all the bedding off the bedstead and searched them. She searched everywhere, and all the time she ranted at him and cuffed him and slapped him.

  It was all no more than William had expected, but it was hard to bear. Doggedly he repeated, “I haven’t stolen it.”

  He was late for school, of course, and he had to deliver a letter from his aunt to the headmaster. Later the headmaster summoned him. “William, do you know what was in the letter from your aunt?”

  “About me?” said William. “I can guess.”

  The headmaster sighed. He said, “I have written a note in reply to your aunt. I have suggested a time when she can call on me to discuss … things. William, you must be sure to deliver this note to your aunt; she is expecting to hear from me. …”

  The other boys were curious about William’s interview with the headmaster. He told them nothing. The witty boy suggested that the head had noticed feathers beginning to sprout on Henny-penny’s legs. This boy found two sparrow feathers in the playground and stuck them in William’s hair when he was not looking.