Read Online Sirius by Olaf Stapledon - Free Book Online Page A

members of the family, who were not yet at boarding school, suspected nothing; but presently he began to talk about it with obvious pride. Elizabeth had to use all her tact and humour to establish the convention that what was perfectly right and proper for Sirius was not to be indulged in by human children until they were grown up; and that anyhow one didn't talk about these things outside the family; and above all, not in Wales. The whole affair, she confessed to Thomas, was really rather awkward, and she only hoped she hadn't done more harm than good.
    Plaxy had of course already had numerous childhood romances. Very early in her schooldays she had been violently in love with a little Welsh girl at the village school. Whether this should be regarded as a sexual sentiment or not, it was certainly an obsession. Sirius, for the first time in his life, found himself unwanted. Plaxy suddenly had no time for the games they used to play when school and homework were over; for she had always promised to do something with Gwen. She would not let him come with her when she went out with her friend, for (she said) Gwen would soon find out that Sirius could talk; and it was the whole family's most sacred taboo that outsiders must not discover yet that Sirius was something more than a super-sheep-dog. This was the secret which they had learnt to cherish as a tribal mystery. No one but the six members of the family knew about it, except Kate, who had long ago been accepted into the tribe. The other two members of the domestic staff, Mildred the nursemaid and the local girl, had both been regretfully dismissed in order that the secret might not be endangered. Sirius therefore saw the force of Plaxy's argument; but something in her voice told him that she was glad to have such a plausible excuse for leaving him behind. The sudden loss of Plaxy's companionship and confidence weighed heavily on the puppy. He did nothing but mope about the house and garden waiting for her return. When she arrived he treated her with effusive affection, but in her response there was often a note of absentmindedness or even indifference.
    After a while this early romance faded out, and Sirius was reinstated. But other romances followed. When she was twelve Plaxy lost her heart to the local blacksmith's boy, Gwilim, who was eighteen. This was a one-sided affair, and Plaxy saw little of him. She made Sirius her confidant, and he comforted her by protesting that Gwilim must be stupid not to love such a nice girl. Once he said, "Anyhow, Plaxy, I love you." She hugged him and said, "Yes, I know, and I love you. But I do love Gwilim. And you see he's my kind , and you're not. I love you differently; not less, but differently."
    It was while Plaxy was pining for her brawny young blacksmith that Sirius himself began to be seriously interested in the females of his own kind. Suddenly Plaxy found that her faithful confidant, who had always been ready to listen and sympathize, save during brief hunting expeditions, was no longer available. Often when she came back from school he was nowhere to be found. He failed to turn up either for homework or games or even meals. Or if he was present, he was mentally far away, and perfunctory in his sympathy. Once when she was telling him how marvellously Gwilim swung the hammer on to the red-hot iron, and how he smiled at her afterwards, Sirius suddenly sprang to his feet, stood for a moment sniffing the air, then bolted. Bitterly mortified, she said to herself, "He's not a real friend, after all. He's just a brute beast." (This expression she had recently learnt at school.) "He doesn't really understand, he doesn't really care." All this she knew to be quite untrue.
    After her intermittent and always unrequited passion for Gwilim had dragged on for eighteen months, causing her much sweet sorrow and self-importance, she happened to come one day upon Sirius in the very act of love with his fragrant darling of the moment. On one