Unnatural Creatures Read online

  “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.”

  “I wish it was your Aunt Willoughby,” said Matilda.

  “Nasty spiteful little thing,” said Pridmore, and she shook Matilda.

  Then Matilda tried to slap Pridmore, and the two went down the steps not at all pleased with each other.

  They walked down the dull road to the dull omnibus, and Matilda was crying a little.

  Now, Pridmore was a very careful person, though cross; but even the most careful persons make mistakes sometimes, and she must have taken the wrong omnibus or this story could never have happened, and where should we all have been then? This shows you that even mistakes are sometimes valuable, so do not be hard on grown-up people if they are wrong sometimes. You know, after all, it hardly ever happens.

  It was a very bright green and gold omnibus, and inside the cushions were green and very soft. Matilda and her nursemaid had it all to themselves, and Matilda began to feel more comfortable, especially as she had wriggled till she had burst one of her shoulder seams and got more room for herself inside her frock.

  So she said, “I’m sorry if I was cross, Priddy, dear.”

  Pridmore said, “So you ought to be,” but she never said she was sorry for being cross, but you must not expect grown-up people to say that.

  It was certainly the wrong omnibus—because instead of jolting slowly along dusty streets, it went quickly and smoothly down a green lane, with flowers in the hedges and green trees overhead. Matilda was so delighted that she sat quite still, a very rare thing with her. Pridmore was reading a penny story, called “The Vengeance of the Lady Constantia,” so she did not notice anything.

  “I don’t care. I shan’t tell her,” said Matilda. “She’d stop the bus as likely as not.”

  At last the bus stopped of its own accord. Pridmore put her story in her pocket and began to get out.

  “Well, I never,” she said, and got out very quickly and ran round to where the horses were. There were four of them. They were white horses with green harness, and their tails were very long indeed.

  “Hi, young man,” said Pridmore, to the omnibus driver, “you’ve brought us to the wrong place. This isn’t Streatham Common, this isn’t.”

  The driver was the most beautiful omnibus driver you ever saw. And his clothes were like him in beauty. He had white silk stockings and a ruffled silk shirt of white—and his coat and breeches were green and gold, so was the three-cornered hat whic
h he lifted very politely when Pridmore spoke to him.

  “I fear,” he said, kindly, “that you must have taken, by some unfortunate misunderstanding, the wrong omnibus!”

  “When does the next one go back?”

  “The omnibus does not go back. It runs from Brixton here once a month, but it doesn’t go back.”

  “But how does it get to Brixton again—to start again, I mean?” asked Matilda.

  “We start a new one every time,” said the driver, raising his three-cornered hat once more.

  “And what becomes of the old ones?” Matilda asked.

  “Ah,” said the driver, smiling, “that depends. One never knows beforehand, and things change so suddenly nowadays. Good morning. Thank you so much for your patronage. No—no—on no account, madam.” He waved away the eightpence which Pridmore was trying to offer him for the fare from Brixton, and drove quickly off.

  Then they looked round them. No—this was certainly not Streatham Common. The wrong omnibus had brought them to a strange village—the neatest, sweetest, reddest, greenest, cleanest, prettiest village in the world. The houses were grouped round a village green, on which children in pretty loose frocks or smocks were playing happily. Not a tight armhole was to be seen, or even imagined, in that happy spot. Matilda swelled herself out and burst three hooks and a bit more of the shoulder seams.

  The shops seemed a little queer, Matilda thought. The names somehow did not match the things that were to be sold. For instance, where it said “Elias Grimes, tinsmith,” there were loaves and buns in the window; and the shop that had “Baker” over the door was full of perambulators; the grocer and the wheelwright seemed to have changed names, or shops, or something; and Miss Scrimpling, dressmaker and milliner, had her shop window full of pork and sausage meat.

  “What a funny, nice place,” said Matilda. ”I am glad we took the wrong omnibus.”

  A little boy in a yellow smock had come up close to them.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, very politely, “but all strangers are brought before the King at once. Please follow me.”

  “Well, of all the impudence!” said Pridmore. “Strangers, indeed! And who may you be, I should like to know?”

  “I,” said the little boy, bowing very low, “am the Prime Minister. I know I do not look it, but appearances are deceitful. It’s only for a short time; I shall probably be myself again by tomorrow.”

  Pridmore muttered something which the little boy did not hear. Matilda caught a few words—“smacked,” “bed,” “bread and water”—familiar words, all of them.

  “If it’s a game,” said Matilda to the boy, “I should like to play.”

  He frowned. “I advise you to come at once,” he said, so sternly, that even Pridmore was a little frightened. “His Majesty’s palace is in this direction.” He walked away, and Matilda made a sudden jump, dragged her hand out of Pridmore’s, and ran after him. So Pridmore had to follow, still grumbling.

  The palace stood in a great green park, dotted with white-flowered maybushes. It was not at all like an English palace—St. James’s or Buckingham Palace, for instance—because it was very beautiful and very clean. When they got in, they saw that the palace was hung with green silk and the footmen had green and gold liveries, and all the courtiers’ clothes were the same colors.

  Matilda and Pridmore had to wait a few moments while the King changed his scepter and put on a clean crown, and then they were shown into the audience chamber. The King came to meet them.

  “It is kind of you to have come so far,” he said. “Of course you’ll stay at the palace?” He looked anxiously at Matilda.

  “Are you quite comfortable, my dear?” he asked, doubtfully.

  Matilda was very truthful, for a girl.

  “No,” she said, “my frock cuts me round the arms.”

  “Ah,” said he, “and you brought no luggage. Some of the Princess’s frocks—her old ones perhaps. Yes, yes; this person—your maid, no doubt.”

  A loud laugh rang suddenly through the hall. The King looked uneasily round as though he expected something to happen. But nothing seemed likely to occur.

  “Yes,” said Matilda; “Pridmore is…Oh, dear.”

  For before her eyes she saw an awful change taking place in Pridmore. In an instant all that was left of the original Pridmore were the boots and the hem of her skirt—the top part of her had changed into painted iron and glass, and, even as Matilda looked, the bit of skirt that was left got flat and hard and square, the two feet turned into four feet, and they were iron feet, and there was no more Pridmore.

  “Oh, my poor child,” said the King; “your maid has turned into an Automatic Machine.”

  It was too true. The maid had turned into a machine such as those which you see in railway stations—greedy, grasping things, which take your pennies and give you back next to nothing in chocolate, and no change.

  But there was no chocolate to be seen through the glass of the machine that had once been Pridmore. Only little rolls of paper.

  The King silently handed some pennies to Matilda.

  She dropped one in to the machine and pulled out the little drawer. There was a scroll of paper. Matilda opened it and read:

  “Don’t be tiresome.”

  She tried again. This time it was:

  “If you don’t give over I’ll tell your ma first thing when she comes home.”

  The next was:

  “Go along with you, do—always worrying.”

  So then Matilda knew.

  “Yes,” said the King, sadly, “I fear there’s no doubt about it. Your maid has turned into an Automatic Nagging Machine. Never mind, my dear. She’ll be all right tomorrow.”

  “I like her best like this, thank you,” said Matilda, quickly. “I needn’t put in any more pennies, you see.”

  “Oh! We mustn’t be unkind and neglectful,” said the King, gently, and he dropped in a penny himself. He got:

  “You tiresome boy, you. Leave me be this minute.”

  “I can’t help it then,” said the King, wearily. “You’ve no idea how suddenly things change here. It’s because—but I’ll tell you all about it at tea. Go with nurse now, my dear, and see if any of the Princess’s frocks will fit you.”

  Then a nice, kind, cuddly nurse led Matilda away to the Princess’s apartments, and took off the stiff frock that hurt, and put on a green silk gown as soft as birds’ breasts, and Matilda kissed her for sheer joy at being so comfortable.

  “And now, dearie,” said the nurse, “you’d like to see the Princess, wouldn’t you? Take care you don’t hurt yourself with her. She’s rather sharp.”

  Matilda did not understand this then. Afterwards she did.

  The nurse took her through many marble corridors and up and down many marble steps, and at last they came to a garden full of white roses, and in the middle of it, on a green satin-covered eiderdown pillow as big as a feather bed, sat the Princess in a white gown.

  She got up when Matilda came towards her, and it was like seeing a yard and a half of white tape stand up on one end and bow—a yard and a half of broad white tape, of course; but what is considered broad for tape is very narrow indeed for Princesses.

  “How are you?” said Matilda, who had been taught manners.

  “Very thin indeed, thank you,” said the Princess. And she was. Her face was so white and thin that it looked as though it were made of oyster shell. Her hands were thin and white, and her fingers reminded Matilda of fish bones. Her hair and eyes were black, and Matilda thought she might have been pretty if she had been fatter. When she shook hands with Matilda her bony hand hurt, quite hard.

  The Princess seemed pleased to see her visitor, and invited her to sit with Her Highness on the satin cushion.

  “I have to be very careful, or I should break,” said she. “That’s why the cushion’s so soft, and I can’t play many games for fear of accidents. Do you know any sitting-down games?”

  The only thing Matilda could t
hink of was “cat’s cradle.” So they played that with the Princess’s green hair ribbon. Her fish-bony fingers were much cleverer at it than Matilda’s little fat pink paws.

  Matilda looked about her between the games and admired everything very much, and asked questions, of course. There was a very large bird chained to a perch in the middle of a very large cage. Indeed, the cage was so big that it took up all one side of the rose garden. The bird had a yellow crest like a cockatoo, and a very large bill like a toucan (if you don’t know what a toucan is you do not deserve ever to go to the Zoological Gardens again).

  “What is that bird?” asked Matilda.

  “Oh,” said the Princess, “that’s my pet Cockatoucan. He’s very valuable. If he were to die or be stolen, the Green Land would wither up and be like New Cross or Islington.”

  “How horrible,” said Matilda, trembling.

  “I’ve never been to those places, of course,” said the Princess, shuddering, “but I hope I know my geography.”

  “All of it?” asked Matilda.

  “Even the exports and imports,” said the Princess. “Good-bye. I’m so thin I have to rest a good deal, or I should wear myself out. Nurse—take her away.”

  So nurse took her away to a wonderful room, where she amused herself till teatime with all the kinds of toys that you see and want in the shops when someone is buying you a box of bricks or a puzzle map—the kinds of toys you never get because they are so expensive.

  Matilda had tea with the King. He was full of true politeness, and treated Matilda exactly as though she had been grown up; so that she was extremely happy and behaved beautifully.