Wet Magic

“Say, ‘Sabrina fair’ again quick while I look.”

“‘Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting,
Under the —’”

“Oh, Mavis, it is – it did. There’s something there truly. Look!”

“Where?” said Mavis. “I can’t see – oh, let me look.”

“MAVIS!” called Aunt Enid very loud indeed; and Mavis tore herself away.

“I must go,” she said. “Never mind, we’ll look again tomorrow. Oh, France, if it should be – magic, I mean – I’ll tell you what – ”

But she never told him what, for Aunt Enid swept in and swept out, bearing Mavis away, as it were, in a whirlwind of impatient exasperation, and, without seeming to stop to do it, blowing out the four candles as she came and went.

At the door she turned to say, “Good night, Francis. Your bath’s turned on ready. Be sure you wash well behind your ears. We shan’t have much time in the morning.”

“But Mavis always bathes first,” said he. “I’m the eldest.”

“Don’t argue, child, for goodness’ sake,” said Aunt Enid. “Mavis is having the flat bath in my bedroom to save time. Come – no nonsense,” she paused at the door to say. “Let me see you go. Right about face – quick march!”

And he had to.

“If she must pretend to give orders like drill, she might at least learn to say ‘’Bout turn!’” he reflected, struggling with his collar stud in the steaming bathroom. “Never mind. I’ll get up early and see if I can’t see it again.”

And so he did – but early as he was, Aunt Enid and the servants were earlier. The aquarium was empty – clear, clean, shining and quite empty.

Aunt Enid could not understand why Francis ate so little breakfast.

“What has she done with them?” he wondered later.

“I know,” said Bernard solemnly. “She told Esther to put them on the kitchen fire – I only just saved my fish.”

“And what about my shells?” asked Mavis in sudden fear.

“Oh, she took those to take care of. Said you weren’t old enough to take care of them yourself.”

You will wonder why the children did not ask their Aunt Enid right out what had become of the contents of the aquarium. Well, you don’t know their Aunt Enid. And besides, even on that first morning, before anything that really was anything could be said to have happened – for, after all, what Francis said he had seen might have been just fancy – there was a sort of misty, curious, trembling feeling at the hearts of Mavis and her brother which made them feel that they did not want to talk about the aquarium and what had been in it to any grown-up – and least of all to their Aunt Enid.

And leaving the aquarium, that was the hardest thing of all. They thought of telegraphing to Mother, to ask whether, after all, they mightn’t bring it – but there was first the difficulty of wording a telegram so that their mother would understand and not deem it insanity or a practical joke – secondly, the fact that ten-pence half-penny, which was all they had between them, would not cover the baldest statement of the facts.

MRS DESMOND,

CARE OF MRS PEARCE,

EAST CLIFF VILLA,

LEWIS ROAD,

WEST BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA, SUSSEX

alone would be eightpence – and the simplest appeal, such as “May we bring aquarium please say yes wire reply” brought the whole thing hopelessly beyond their means.

“It’s no good,” said Francis hopelessly. “And, anyway,” said Kathleen, “there wouldn’t be time to get an answer before we go.”

No one had thought of this. It was a sort of backhanded consolation.

“But think of coming back to it,” said Mavis: “it’ll be something to live for, when we come back from the sea and everything else is beastly.”

And it was.

CHAPTER TWO

The Captive

THE delicate pinkish bloom of newness was on the wooden spades, the slick smoothness of the painted pails showed neither scratch nor dent on their green and scarlet surface – the shrimping nets were full and fluffy as, once they and sand and water had met, they never could be again. The pails and spades and nets formed the topmost layer of a pile of luggage – you know the sort of thing, with the big boxes at the bottom; and the carryall bulging with its wraps and mackers; the old portmanteau that shows its striped lining through the crack and is so useful for putting boots in; and the sponge bag, and all the little things that get left out. You can almost always squeeze a ball or a paint box or a box of chalks or any of those things – which grown-ups say you won’t really want till you come back – into that old portmanteau – and then when it’s being unpacked at the journey’s end the most that can happen will be that someone will say, “I thought I told you not to bring that,” and if you don’t answer back, that will be all. But most likely in the agitation of unpacking and settling in, your tennis ball, or pencil box, or whatever it is, will pass unnoticed. Of course, you can’t shove an aquarium into the old portmanteau – nor a pair of rabbits, nor a hedgehog – but anything in reason you can.

The luggage that goes in the van is not much trouble – of course, it has to be packed and to be strapped, and labeled and looked after at the junction, but apart from that the big luggage behaves itself, keeps itself to itself, and like your elder brothers at college never occasions its friends a moment’s anxiety. It is the younger fry of the luggage family, the things you have with you in the carriage that are troublesome – the bundle of umbrellas and walking sticks, the golf clubs, the rugs, the greatcoats, the basket of things to eat, the books you are going to read in the train and as often as not you never look at them, the newspapers that the grown-ups are tired of and yet don’t want to throw away, their little bags or dispatch cases and suitcases and card cases, and scarfs and gloves —

The children were traveling under the care of Aunt Enid, who always had far more of these tiresome odds and ends than Mother had – and it was at the last moment, when the cab was almost to be expected to be there, that Aunt Enid rushed out to the corner shop and returned with four new spades, four new pails, and four new shrimping nets, and presented them to the children just in time for them to be added to the heap of odds and ends with which the cab was filled up.

“I hope it’s not ungrateful,” said Mavis at the station as they stood waiting by the luggage mound while Aunt Enid went to take the tickets – “but why couldn’t she have bought them at Beachfield?”

“Makes us look such babies,” said Francis, who would not be above using a wooden spade at the proper time and place but did not care to be branded in the face of all Waterloo Junction as one of those kids off to the seaside with little spades and pails.

Kathleen and Bernard were, however, young enough to derive a certain pleasure from stroking the smooth, curved surface of the spades till Aunt Enid came fussing back with the tickets and told them to put their gloves on for goodness’ sake and try not to look like street children.

I am sorry that the first thing you should hear about the children should be that they did not care about their Aunt Enid, but this was unfortunately the case. And if you think this was not nice of them I can only remind you that you do not know their Aunt Enid.

There was a short, sharp struggle with the porter, a flustered passage along the platform and the children were safe in the carriage marked “Reserved” – thrown into it, as it were, with all that small fry of luggage which I have just described. Then Aunt Enid fussed off again to exchange a few last home truths with the porter, and the children were left.

“We breathe again,” said Mavis.

“Not yet we don’t,” said Francis, “there’ll be some more fuss as soon as she comes back. I’d almost as soon not go to the sea as go with her.”

“But you’ve never seen the sea,” Mavis reminded him.

“I know,” said Francis, morosely, “but look at all this – ” he indicated the tangle of their possessions which littered seats and rack – “I do wish – ”

He stopped, for a head appeared in the open doorway – in a round hat very like Aunt Enid’s – but it was not Aunt Enid’s. The face under the hat was a much younger, kinder one.

“I’m afraid this carriage is reserved,” said the voice that belonged to the face.

“Yes,” said Kathleen, “but there’s lots of room if you like to come too.”

“I don’t know if the aunt we’re with would like it,” said the more cautious Mavis. “We should, of course,” she added to meet the kind smiling eyes that looked from under the hat that was like Aunt Enid’s.

The lady said: “I’m an aunt too – I’m going to meet my nephew at the junction. The train’s frightfully crowded… If I were to talk to your aunt … perhaps on the strength of our common aunthood. The train will start in a minute. I haven’t any luggage to be a bother – nothing but one paper.” – she had indeed a folded newspaper in her hands.