Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

Stella at once went to the piano in the day-nursery and began to play her most unmelodious tune. Michael ran to the cupboard and produced a drum which he banged defiantly. He banged it so violently that presently the drum, already worn very thin, burst. Michael was furious and immediately proceeded to twang an over-varnished zither. So furiously did he twang the zither that finally he caught one of his nails in a sharp string of the treble, and in great pain hurled the instrument across the room. Meanwhile, Stella continued to play, and when Michael commanded her to stop, answered annoyingly that she had been told to practise.

“Don’t say pwactise, you silly. Say practise,” Michael contemptuously exclaimed.

“Shan’t,” Stella answered with that cold and fat stolidity of demeanour and voice which disgusted Michael like the fat of cold mutton.

“I’m older than you,” Michael asserted.

Stella made no observation, but continued to play, and Michael, now acutely irritated, rushed to the piano and slammed down the lid. Stella must have withdrawn her fingers in time, for there was no sign of any pinch or bruise upon them. However, she began to cry, while Michael addressed to her the oration which for a long time he had wished to utter.

“You are silly. You are a crybaby. Fancy crying about nothing. I wouldn’t. Everybody doesn’t want to hear your stupid piano-playing. Boys at school think pianos are stupid. You always grumble about my humming. You are a crybaby.

What are little boys made of?
Sugar and spice and all that’s nice,
That’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
Slugs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails,
Ugh! that’s what little girls are made of.”

“They’re not,” Stella screamed. “They’re not!” Michael’s perversion of the original rhyme made her inarticulate with grief and rage. “They’re not, you naughty boy!”

Michael, contented with his victory, left Stella to herself and her tears. As he hummed his way downstairs, he thought sensuously of the imminent reconciliation, and in about ten minutes, having found some barley-sugar buried against an empty day, Michael came back to Stella with peace-offerings and words of comfort.

Miss Carthew arrived on the next morning and the nervous excitement of waiting was lulled. Miss Carthew came through the rain of Valentine Day, and Michael hugged himself with the thought of her taking off her mackintosh and handing it to Gladys to be dried. With the removal of her wet outdoor clothes, Miss Carthew seemed to come nearer to Michael and, as they faced each other over the schoolroom table (for the day-nursery in one moment had become the schoolroom), Michael felt that he could bear not being grown up just for the pleasure of sitting opposite to his new governess.

It was not so much by these lessons that Michael’s outlook was widened as by the conversations he enjoyed with Miss Carthew during their afternoon walks. She told him, so far as she could, everything that he desired to know. She never accused him of being old-fashioned or inquisitive, and indeed as good as made him feel that the more questions he asked the better she would like it. Miss Carthew had all the mental and imaginative charm of the late Mrs. Frith in combination with an outward attractiveness that made her more dearly beloved. Indeed Miss Carthew had numberless pleasant qualities. If she promised anything, the promise was always kept to the letter. If Michael did not know his lesson or omitted the performance of an ordained task, Miss Carthew was willing to hear the explanation of his failure and was never unreasonable in her judgment. One morning very soon after her arrival, Michael was unable to repeat satisfactorily the verse of the psalm Venite Adoremus set for him to learn.

“Why don’t you know it, Michael?” Miss Carthew asked.

“I had to go to bed.”

“But surely you had plenty of time before you went to bed?” Miss Carthew persisted.

“Nanny wanted to go out, and I went to bed early,” Michael explained.

For a moment or two Miss Carthew considered the problem silently. Then she rang the bell and told withered Gladys that she wished to speak to Nurse. Presently Nurse came in, very aggressive and puckered.

“Did Michael have to go to bed very early last night?” Miss Carthew enquired.

“Oh, yes. Yes,” Nurse blew out. “Early last night. Wednesday night. Yes. I had to go out. Yes.”

“What time did he go to bed?” Miss Carthew went on.

“What time?” repeated Nurse. “Why the proper time, of course.”

“Don’t be insolent,” said Miss Carthew very tranquilly.

Nurse blustered and wrinkled her nose and frowned and came very close to Miss Carthew and peered up into her face, blowing harder than ever.

“The arrangements can’t be altered for governesses,” said Nurse. “No. Tut-tut. Never heard of such a thing.”

“The arrangements will be altered. In future Michael will go to bed at half-past seven. It’s not good for him to go to bed earlier. Do you understand?”

“Do I understand? No, I don’t understand,” Nurse snapped.

“Very well,” said Miss Carthew. “You need not wait, Nurse.”

Nurse blinked and peered and fumed, but Miss Carthew paid so little attention that Michael felt himself blushing for her humiliation. However, he did not go to bed that night till half-past seven and at the end of the week could rattle off the Venite in two breaths. It was extraordinary how Nurse shrank into nothing at Miss Carthew’s approach, like a witch in the presence of a good fairy.

The nights were still a trial to Michael, but gradually they became less terrible, as Miss Carthew’s conversation gave him something better to meditate upon than the possibilities of disaster and crime. On the afternoon walks would be told stories of Miss Carthew’s youth in the West Country, of cliffs and seabirds and wrecks, of yachting cruises and swimming, of golden sands and magical coves and green islands. Miss Carthew’s own father had been a captain in the Royal Navy and she had had one brother, a midshipman, who was drowned