Unnatural Creatures

“What! vanished away into nothing?” asked Van Cheele excitedly.

“No; that is the dreadful part of it,” answered the artist. “On the open hillside where the boy had been standing a second ago, stood a large wolf, blackish in color, with gleaming fangs and cruel, yellow eyes. You may think—”

But Van Cheele did not stop for anything as futile as thought. Already he was tearing at top speed towards the station. He dismissed the idea of a telegram. “Gabriel-Ernest is a werewolf” was a hopelessly inadequate effort at conveying the situation, and his aunt would think it was a code message to which he had omitted to give her the key. His one hope was that he might reach home before sundown. The cab which he chartered at the other end of the railway journey bore him with what seemed exasperating slowness along the country roads which were pink and mauve with the flush of the sinking sun. His aunt was putting away some unfinished jams and cake when he arrived.

“Where is Gabriel-Ernest?” he almost screamed.

“He is taking the little Toop child home,” said his aunt. “It was getting so late, I thought it wasn’t safe to let it go back alone. What a lovely sunset, isn’t it?”

But Van Cheele, although not oblivious of the glow in the western sky, did not stay to discuss its beauties. At a speed for which he was scarcely geared he raced along the narrow lane that led to the home of the Toops. On one side ran the swift current of the millstream; on the other rose the stretch of bare hillside. A dwindling rim of red sun showed still on the skyline, and the next turning must bring him in view of the ill-assorted couple he was pursuing. Then the color went suddenly out of things, and a grey light settled itself with a quick shiver over the landscape. Van Cheele heard a shrill wail of fear, and stopped running.

Nothing was ever seen again of the Toop child or Gabriel-Ernest, but the latter’s discarded garments were found lying in the road, so it was assumed that the child had fallen into the water, and that the boy had stripped and jumped in, in a vain endeavor to save it. Van Cheele and some workmen who were nearby at the time testified to having heard a child scream loudly just near the spot where the clothes were found. Mrs. Toop, who had eleven other children, was decently resigned to her bereavement, but Miss Van Cheele sincerely mourned her lost foundling. It was on her initiative that a memorial brass was put up in the parish church to “Gabriel-Ernest, an unknown boy, who bravely sacrificed his life for another.”

Van Cheele gave way to his aunt in most things, but he flatly refused to subscribe to the Gabriel-Ernest memorial.

8

E. NESBIT wrote her stories for children more than a hundred years ago. They range from the realistic to the magical. This is one of her few short stories that feels like a romp. And the cockatoucan is a marvelous villain.

Primped and prodded into a too-tight dress, Matilda is sent to visit her ancient great-aunt Willoughby, but something goes wrong along the way….

MATILDA’S EARS WERE RED AND SHINY. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red, too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the “thorough good wash,” which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.

Matilda wished she could have been born in a savage tribe, instead of in Brixton.

“Little savages,” she said, “don’t have their ears washed thoroughly, and they don’t have new dresses that are prickly in the insides round their arms and cut them round the neck, do they, Pridmore?”

But Pridmore only said, “Stuff and nonsense”; and then she said: “Don’t wriggle so, child, for goodness’ sake.” Pridmore was Matilda’s nursemaid, and Matilda sometimes found her trying.

Matilda was quite right in believing that savage children do not wear frocks that hurt. It is also true that savage children are not overwashed, overbrushed, overcombed, gloved, booted, and hatted, and taken in an omnibus to Streatham to see their Great-Aunt Willoughby. This was intended to be Matilda’s fate. Her mother had arranged it. Pridmore had prepared her for it. Matilda, knowing resistance to be vain, had submitted to it.

But Destiny had not been consulted. And Destiny had plans of its own for Matilda.

When the last button of Matilda’s boots had been fastened (the buttonhook always had a nasty temper, especially when it was hurried—and that day it bit a little piece of Matilda’s leg quite spitefully), the wretched child was taken downstairs and put on a chair in the hall, to wait while Pridmore popped her own things on.

“I shan’t be a minute,” said Pridmore. Matilda knew better. She settled herself to wait, and swung her legs miserably. She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby’s before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can’t think why grown-up people don’t see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer:

“I’m the top of my class, auntie, thank you, and I am very good. And now let us have a little talk about you, aunt, dear. How much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient, as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?”

Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says.

Matilda knew exactly what Aunt Willoughby’s questions would be, and she knew how, when they were answered, her aunt would give her a small biscuit with caraway seeds in it, and then tell her to go with Pridmore and have her hands and face washed. Again!

Then she would be sent to walk in the garden; the garden had a gritty path, and geraniums and calceolarias and lobelias in the beds. You might not pick anything. There would be minced veal for dinner, with three-cornered bits of toast round the dish; and a tapioca pudding. Then the long afternoon with a book, a bound volume of The Potterer’s Saturday Night, nasty small print, and all the stories about children who died young because they were too good for this world.

Matilda wriggled wretchedly. If she had been a little less uncomfortable she would have cried—but her new frock was too tight and prickly to let her forget it for a moment, even in tears.

When Pridmore came down at last she said, “Fie for shame, what a sulky face.”

And Matilda said, “I’m not.”

“Oh, yes, you are,” said Pridmore—“you know you are—you don’t appreciate your blessings.”