The Rope and Other Stories Read online

  I suppose that – if he were capable of planning at all – Micky must have meant to leap from Celia's pocket and instantly leave the house at greatest speed by the open front door. But the gaze of the shadowy hall was full upon him: he did not leap, but fell helplessly from Celia's pocket on to the floor of the hall and lay there motionless.

  (‘Oh!’ moaned my mother, and there was a small clatter as she fainted away in her corner of the porch among the potted plants. She knew how a lady should react to the sight of a mouse.)

  What followed is difficult to describe. It was as if the house – not the bricks and mortar, of course, but the inside of the house, the shadowy air itself – gathered together swiftly and with one ferocious purpose against a terrified white mouse –

  – And pounced!

  Micky gave one heart-rending squeak – a mouse-shriek that rose to heaven imploring mercy, and met none. He died in mid-squeak; and Celia fell on her knees by his body, babbling grief.

  And the last of the slinking shadows melted away, every last one of them.

  Only the smell remained; and later my intelligent nose would remember and make a connection between the present appalling stench of cat and the peculiar and rather repellent stuffiness of our house after every seaside holiday. In that stuffiness lurked the very last faint trace of this present horror of a smell.

  As for my father, he would never, anyway, countenance any idea of the supernatural: he had always ridiculed it. The very idea of evidence put him into a fury. Now he was beside himself with indignation. ‘What is going on?’ he shouted into the empty hall.

  There was no reply – no sound at all except a slight scuffling from the back of the porch, where my mother was beginning to struggle among the potted plants; also Celia's quiet sobbing. He picked on that. He realized that the mouse had been Celia's rash secret. In this she had been, he said, deceitful, disobedient and – oh, yes! defiant and disloyal. Under the fury of her father's attack, Celia's weeping became hysterical. Her tears rained down upon the corpse clasped to her breast, and she was led away by the Miss Hardys to be given sal volatile and sympathy.

  My father now turned to the plight of my mother in her porch corner. On regaining consciousness, she had opened her eyes to find Mr Brown's gazing fully into them at a distance of about three and a half inches. And he was now gallantly assisting her with helping hands, one at her waist, another at her elbow. My father rushed down upon them, demanding that Mr Brown remove himself instantly from his wife and his porch and the rest of his property. Without pause he went on to attack Mr Brown's birth, breeding, appearance, character and former occupation – ‘trade’! (Rage always inspired my father.)

  Mr Brown was neither foolhardy nor a fool. He retreated. Out into the drenching rain he went, and home. We all watched him go. That was really the last we saw of Mr Brown. Within two days my father had caused a seven-foot-high solid fence to be built just our side of the laurel hedge.

  Having dispatched Mr Brown, my father became master again in his own house. He instructed us to go round opening all the windows to let what he called ‘this stale air’ out and the fresh air in. Never mind the rain. Then we must unpack. ‘Our holiday is over; we are at home; we resume our routine.’

  In the long term, however, our routine had been undermined; and for this my father could not forgive the Miss Hardys. He suspected them of conniving at happenings which were all the more deplorable because they simply could not have occurred. He had known of the existence of the late Mrs Chamberlain, of course, because he had bought our house from her heirs. He may even have heard of her mania for cats. (‘She couldn't resist a stray,’ the Miss Hardys explained to Celia. ‘She tried to keep the numbers down. But, by the end – well, the house did begin rather to smell. Cats, you know…’)

  My father would never admit to what became obvious: that the ghosts of Mrs Chamberlain and her cats had been returning regularly to haunts where they had been happy. They had been tempted by the absolute regularity of our holiday absences to hold a kind of annual Old Girls' Reunion in our house – but there must have been Old Boys as well. Only the attendance of at least one tom-cat could explain the strength of that smell.

  The Miss Hardys had known what was going on every August, but saw no harm in it. The ghosts came promptly after our departure for the seaside, and had always vacated the house well before the date of our return. ‘It was all so discreetly done!’ the Miss Hardys remarked plaintively to Celia, as they administered the sal volatile. ‘Such a pity that it should have to stop!’

  But it did. Before the next summer, we had moved house; and I do not suppose that any family succeeding us could have had such a very dependable holiday routine. I only hope the ghosts were not too much disappointed.

  After that summer my father became – and remained – jumpy about family holidays. We were never allowed to go at the same time for two years running. This meant, incidentally, that we no longer stayed in Mrs Prothero's guest-house. In a huff she had said that she could not be expected to be ‘irregularly available’.

  The Miss Hardys were seldom spoken of; Mr Brown never.

  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 small-holding – 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 goodbye, 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 hen-house 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 hen-house.

  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 round the neck of his Aunt Rosa.

  Still thinking of the gold chain, he reached the hen-house.

  The hen-house was a low, wooden, home-made 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 pop-hole 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 hen-house door and peered in. It was always dim inside the hen-house; 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 pop-hole on the opposite side of the hen-house.

  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 hen-house; 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 hen-house, deep in the straw, absolutely still, absolutely quiet, staring at him.

  The hen-house 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 hen-house 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 hen-house. 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 pop-hole, 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 hen-house 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 air-hole 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 hen-house. He liked the innocent trickery of it; he liked the neat little hole in its side, that 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 hen-house for me.’