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Authors: Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane
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much,’ and she would drop them by her plate, or fill a wine glass with water and drop them
into it, to be forgotten. I had seen them afterwards on the dinner tray in the pantry, cleared away with the spoons and forks
after luncheon. There they retired into a meaner proportion, as if their scent had been apparent only to ourselves, and their
floods of blue had died out in our eyes.
But practical gifts were bound to bring a definite acknowledgement and often a satisfying one. ‘Just what I’ve been wanting.
Look, dear –’ to Papa – ‘a pen-wiper. She knows what a letter-writer I am,’ and they would both laugh immoderately. He was
the one who patted me and kissed me, lifting me off my feet so that my black-stockinged legs dangled free – he was very easy
in the smallest caresses.
Sometimes Mummie would touch Hubert – always in a reserved sort of way. She never tried to paint him. ‘My black Bubbles,’
she called him. How she disliked that beautiful picture by Sir John Millais! And it bore absolutely no resemblance to Hubert;
he was brown as an Italian child,wherever the sun could invade the little boy’s clothes of our day – navy blue jerseys and over-long shorts. Even then he used
his looks like a shield before making some outrageous remark in a toothless lisping way: ‘I theen a terrible thing – I theen
a thquirrel laying nuth.’ She would laugh with him.
How to please? During the hour after tea when we came down to the drawingroom, I would sit silent in my blue accordion pleats,
my christening locket, turquoise and pearl, swinging on its gold chain round my neck, my feet in their bronze dancing sandals
crossed tight as in a vice. While Hubert breathed heavily over his Meccano set, constructing a ladder, or perhaps a dog kennel,
speechless I sat, my longing to make a good impression twanging and vibrating within. I might try: ‘We went for a walk today.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘We went across the Horse Park and back along the Ladies’ Walk—’ She would turn up the blue enamel watch with a diamond bird
on its back pinned to her blouse by a diamond bow, and glance hopelessly at its face: ‘Yes, and what did my little good-news
girl see on her walk?’
By the time I was in bed I could have listed twenty startling pieces of information – from a salmon rising in the river to
the rook splashing down his, well, his … onto Mrs Brock’s hat. Now, interrupted in my recital, I could only wait in a blank
hiatus before I gabbled out: ‘I saw a rabbit.’
‘A rabbit? Really? That is interesting. You saw nothing for your flower collection for instance?’
We had never given wild flowers a thought on that happy walk, nor grasses, nor birds’ nests, nor frogs’ spawn; we had hung
on Mrs Brock’s arms, transported by her tales to theluxurious and easy atmosphere of Stoke Charity. We were living with Richard and Sholto and Lady Grizel; we could nearly taste
the delicious little suppers Walter carried up to the schoolroom. Although these suppers had the HunkerMunker
Two Bad Mice
quality of false doll’s-house food, the breathing life in her telling held us avid as a good rancid gossip about money or
love might hold us in later life.
Aching as she did for useful occupation, Mrs Brock found her outlet in the linen cupboard. This enormous, dark, mouse-ridden
cavern stretched across the end of a passage; on its back wall a window, firmly laced with ivy, gave a little light to the
towering shelves. The linen in our house had been wearing thin, or had been stolen away by generations of housemaids, supposedly
its menders and keepers, who had charge of the key. The present housemaid was named Wild Rose; she was bred to be hot, as
the stable lads said when ducking her in a tank of water in the yard. Rose, screaming, enjoyed this fun as much as anyone
but, not unnaturally, lost the key of the linen cupboard in her struggles.
Mrs Brock’s fatal gift came to the
into it, to be forgotten. I had seen them afterwards on the dinner tray in the pantry, cleared away with the spoons and forks
after luncheon. There they retired into a meaner proportion, as if their scent had been apparent only to ourselves, and their
floods of blue had died out in our eyes.
But practical gifts were bound to bring a definite acknowledgement and often a satisfying one. ‘Just what I’ve been wanting.
Look, dear –’ to Papa – ‘a pen-wiper. She knows what a letter-writer I am,’ and they would both laugh immoderately. He was
the one who patted me and kissed me, lifting me off my feet so that my black-stockinged legs dangled free – he was very easy
in the smallest caresses.
Sometimes Mummie would touch Hubert – always in a reserved sort of way. She never tried to paint him. ‘My black Bubbles,’
she called him. How she disliked that beautiful picture by Sir John Millais! And it bore absolutely no resemblance to Hubert;
he was brown as an Italian child,wherever the sun could invade the little boy’s clothes of our day – navy blue jerseys and over-long shorts. Even then he used
his looks like a shield before making some outrageous remark in a toothless lisping way: ‘I theen a terrible thing – I theen
a thquirrel laying nuth.’ She would laugh with him.
How to please? During the hour after tea when we came down to the drawingroom, I would sit silent in my blue accordion pleats,
my christening locket, turquoise and pearl, swinging on its gold chain round my neck, my feet in their bronze dancing sandals
crossed tight as in a vice. While Hubert breathed heavily over his Meccano set, constructing a ladder, or perhaps a dog kennel,
speechless I sat, my longing to make a good impression twanging and vibrating within. I might try: ‘We went for a walk today.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘We went across the Horse Park and back along the Ladies’ Walk—’ She would turn up the blue enamel watch with a diamond bird
on its back pinned to her blouse by a diamond bow, and glance hopelessly at its face: ‘Yes, and what did my little good-news
girl see on her walk?’
By the time I was in bed I could have listed twenty startling pieces of information – from a salmon rising in the river to
the rook splashing down his, well, his … onto Mrs Brock’s hat. Now, interrupted in my recital, I could only wait in a blank
hiatus before I gabbled out: ‘I saw a rabbit.’
‘A rabbit? Really? That is interesting. You saw nothing for your flower collection for instance?’
We had never given wild flowers a thought on that happy walk, nor grasses, nor birds’ nests, nor frogs’ spawn; we had hung
on Mrs Brock’s arms, transported by her tales to theluxurious and easy atmosphere of Stoke Charity. We were living with Richard and Sholto and Lady Grizel; we could nearly taste
the delicious little suppers Walter carried up to the schoolroom. Although these suppers had the HunkerMunker
Two Bad Mice
quality of false doll’s-house food, the breathing life in her telling held us avid as a good rancid gossip about money or
love might hold us in later life.
Aching as she did for useful occupation, Mrs Brock found her outlet in the linen cupboard. This enormous, dark, mouse-ridden
cavern stretched across the end of a passage; on its back wall a window, firmly laced with ivy, gave a little light to the
towering shelves. The linen in our house had been wearing thin, or had been stolen away by generations of housemaids, supposedly
its menders and keepers, who had charge of the key. The present housemaid was named Wild Rose; she was bred to be hot, as
the stable lads said when ducking her in a tank of water in the yard. Rose, screaming, enjoyed this fun as much as anyone
but, not unnaturally, lost the key of the linen cupboard in her struggles.
Mrs Brock’s fatal gift came to the
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