Mansfield with Monsters (4 page)

Matilda listens to the voices from below, to the ship's engine and the murmur of people on board as she approaches, but above all there is one voice which fills her heart. It is a primordial voice, a voice not of the earth, a voice that has crossed infinite distances from a forgotten world to reach her and whisper to the very core of her being. It is the wind—the wind.

Sun and Moon

In the afternoon the chairs came, a whole big cart full of little gold ones with their legs in the air. And then the flowers came. When Sun and Moon stared down from the balcony at the small mortals carrying them, the flower-pots looked like funny hats nodding up the path.

Moon thought they were hats. She said: “Look. There's a man wearing a palm on his head.” But she never knew the difference between real things and not real ones.

There was nobody to look after Sun and Moon. The whole household was busy with preparations for the feast, the human servants scurrying about here and there to get everything ready. Nurse was helping Annie alter Mother's dress which was much-too-long-and-tight-under-the-arms and Mother was flitting all over the house and sending messages to Father to be sure not to forget things. She only had time to say: “Out of my way, children!”

They kept out of her way—at any rate Sun did. He did so hate being sent stumping back to the nursery. It didn't matter about Moon. If she got tangled in people's legs they only threw her up and shook her till she giggled. But Sun was too heavy for that. He was so heavy that the fat high priest who came to dinner on Sundays used to say: “Now, my young lord, let's try to lift you.” And then he'd put his thumbs under Sun's arms and groan and try and give it up at last saying: “He's a perfect little ton of bricks!” Sun didn't like it when mortals tried to treat him like a human child though it amused Mother and Father. No man or woman dared to forget what Mother and Father were.

Mother had told Sun it was to be the first feast in ten years and that many people would come for a magnificent banquet and give offerings for all that Mother and Father had bestowed. Nearly all the furniture was taken out of the dining-room to make room for the feast. The grand piano was put in a corner and then there came a row of silver flower-pots and then there came the goldy chairs. That was for the concert. When Sun looked in a white-faced man sat at the piano—not playing, but banging at it and then looking inside. He had a bag of tools on the piano and he had stuck his hat on a statue against the wall. Sometimes he just started to play and then he jumped up again and looked inside. He seemed very nervous. Sun hoped he wasn't the concert.

But of course the place to be in was the kitchen. There was a man helping in a cap like a blancmange, and their usual cook, Minnie, was all red in the face and laughing. Not flustered at all. She gave them each an almond finger and lifted them up on to the flour bin so that they could watch the wonderful things she and the man were making for supper. Cook brought in the things and he put them on silver dishes and adorned them with glittering garnishes. Whole fishes, with their heads and eyes and tails still on, he sprinkled with red and green and yellow bits; he made squiggles all over the jellies; he stuck a collar on a ham and stabbed a very thin sort of a fork in it; he dotted almonds and tiny round biscuits on the creams. And more and more things kept coming.

“Ah, but you haven't seen the ice pudding,” said Cook. “Come along.” She took them by the hands and they looked into the refrigerator.

Oh! It was a little ice castle set in the middle of sugar-frosted clouds. It was a fabulous ice castle with white snow on the turrets and arched windows and a silver door and stuck in the door there was a golden nut for a handle.

When Sun saw the nut he felt quite tired and had to lean against Cook.

“Is that where Mother and Father used to live?” Sun asked her.

“Yes, that's the castle in the clouds where the Lord and Lady resided before they came down from the heavens, and one day they'll return and take you and your sister with them,” she said in a singsong voice like she was reciting a nursery rhyme.

“Let me touch it. Just let me put my finger on the roof,” said Moon, dancing. She always wanted to touch all the food. Sun didn't.

“Is the table ready for the feast?” said Cook as the housemaid came in.

“It's a picture, Min,” said Nellie. “Come along and have a look.” So they all went into the dining-room. Sun and Moon were almost frightened. They wouldn't go up to the table at first; they just stood at the door and made eyes at it. It wasn't real night yet but the blinds were down in the dining-room and the lights turned on—and all the lights were red roses. Red ribbons and bunches of roses tied up the table at the corners. In the middle was a shimmering lake with rose petals floating on it.

“That's where the ice pudding is to be,” said Cook

Two silver lions with wings had fruit on their backs, and the salt cellars were golden eagles with magnificent talons.

And all the winking glasses and shining plates and sparkling knives and forks—and all the food. And the little red table napkins made into roses…

“Are people going to eat the food?” asked Sun.

“I should just think they were. It wouldn't be much of a feast without any eating,” laughed Cook, laughing with Nellie. Moon laughed, too; she always did the same as other people. But Sun didn't want to laugh. Round and round he walked with his hands behind his back, wondering when he would be old enough to be allowed at the feast. Perhaps he never would have stopped if Nurse hadn't called suddenly: “Now then. It's high time you were washed and dressed.” And they were marched off to the nursery.

While they were being unbuttoned Mother looked in with a white gossamer shawl over her shoulders.

“I'll ring for them when I want them, Nurse, and then they can just come down and be presented and go back again,” said she.

Sun was undressed first, nearly to his skin, and dressed again in a white shirt with red and yellow sunbursts speckled on it, breeches with strings at the sides and braces that came over, white socks and red shoes.

“Now your robe and you're every inch the celestial lord Sun,” said Nurse, draping the red velvet about his shoulders.

“Am I?” said Sun.

“Yes. Sit quiet in that chair and watch your little sister.”

Moon took ages. When she had her socks put on she pretended to fall back on the bed and waved her legs at Nurse as she always did, and every time Nurse tried to make her curls with a finger and a wet brush she turned round and asked Nurse to show her the diamond tiara or the white gold crescent brooch or something like that. But at last she was finished too. Her dress stuck out, with fur on it, all white; there was even fluffy stuff on the legs of her drawers. Her shoes were white with glittering crescents on them.

“There you are, my little lady,” said Nurse. “And you look like a sweet little cherub of a picture of a powder-puff!” Nurse rushed to the door. “Ma'am, one moment.”

Mother came in again with half her hair down.

“Oh,” she cried. “What a divine picture!”

“Isn't she,” said Nurse.

And Moon held out her skirts by the tips and dragged one of her feet. Sun didn't mind people not noticing him—much…

After that they played clean tidy games up at the table while Nurse stood at the door, and when the carriages began to come and the sound of laughter and voices and soft rustlings came from down below she whispered: “Now then, children, stay where you are.” Moon kept jerking the table cloth so that it all hung down her side and Sun hadn't any—and then she pretended she didn't do it on purpose.

At last the bell rang. Nurse pounced at them with the hair brush, flattened his fringe, straightened Moon's tiara, and joined their hands together.

“Down you go!” she whispered. “Remember these people have brought tribute to your mother and father. It is a great honour.”

And down they went. Sun did feel silly holding Moon's hand like that but Moon seemed to like it. She swung her arm and the charms on her silver bracelet jingled.

At the drawing-room door stood Mother fanning herself with a black fan. The drawing-room was full of sweet smelling, silky, rustling ladies and men in black with funny tails on their coats—like beetles. Father was among them, talking very loud, and rattling something in his pocket.

“What a picture!” cried the ladies. “Oh, how lovely and fine they are! Oh, how divine! Oh, how sweet!”

All the people who couldn't get at Moon kissed Sun, and a skinny old lady with teeth that clicked said: “Our glorious little lord,” and she touched his cheeks with a trembling hand.

“It breaks my heart to be so honoured,” another lady said, dabbing her eyes with a lacy handkerchief.

Sun looked to see if the same concert was there, but he was gone. Instead, a fat man with a pink head leant over the piano talking to a girl who held a violin at her ear.

There was only one man that Sun really liked. He was a little grey man, with long grey whiskers, who walked about by himself. He came up to Sun and rolled his eyes in a very nice way and said: “Hullo, my young lord. I was here at the last feast. By the gods' graces I wasn't chosen. I only wish I had brought something to give you.” Then he went away, staring in the distance like he was searching for something he had lost. But soon he came back again and Sun said: “I'm fond of dogs.” He winked and showed Sun a smooth white pearl, then blew on his palm and made it disappear. But then the man went away again and though Sun looked for him everywhere he couldn't find him. He thought perhaps he'd gone outside to fetch in a puppy.

“Good-night, my precious babies,” said Mother, folding them up in her bare arms before she whispered: “Fly up to your little nest.”

Then Moon went and made a silly of herself again. She put up her arms in front of everybody and said: “My daddy must carry me.”

But they seemed to like it, and Daddy swooped down and picked her up as he always did.

Nurse was in such a hurry to get them to bed. “Be quick about it, children, do.” And the moment after they were in bed and in the dark except for the golden nightlight in its little saucer.

“Are you asleep?” asked Moon.

“No,” said Sun. “Are you?”

“No,” said Moon.

A long while after Sun woke up again. There was a loud, loud noise of clapping from downstairs, like when it rains. He heard Moon turn over.

“Moon, are you awake?”

“Yes, are you?”

“Yes. Well, let's go and look over the stairs.”

They had just got settled on the top step when the drawing-room door opened and they saw the gathering cross over the hall into the dining-room, each guest carrying a little egg-sized ball of spun sugar with something rattling insideThen that door was shut; there was a noise of ‘pops' and laughing, and one or two shrieks. Then that stopped and Sun saw them all walking round and round the lovely table with their hands behind their backs like he had done. Round and round they walked, looking and staring. The man with the grey whiskers liked the ice castle best. When he saw the nut for a handle he rolled his eyes like he did before and said to Sun: “Seen the nut?”

“Don't nod your head like that, Moon.”

“I'm not nodding. It's you.”

“It is not. I never nod my head.”

“O-oh, you do. You're nodding it now.”

“I'm not. I'm only showing you how not to do it.”

When they woke up again they could only hear Father's voice very loud, and Mother, laughing away. All the guests at the feast must have left by now. Father came out of the dining-room, bounded up the stairs, and nearly fell over them.

“Hullo!” he said. “Look at this.”

Mother came out. “Oh, you naughty children,” said she from the hall.

“Let's have them down and give them a bone,” said Father. Sun had never seen him so jolly.

“No, certainly not,” said Mother.

“Oh, my Daddy, do! Do have us down,” said Moon.

“I'm hanged if I won't,” cried Father. “I won't be bullied.” And he caught them up, one under each arm.

Sun thought Mother would have been dreadfully cross. But she wasn't. She kept on laughing at Father.

“Oh, you dreadful boy!” said she. But she didn't mean Sun.

“Come on, kiddies. Come and have some pickings,” said this jolly Father. But Moon stopped a minute.

“Mother—your dress has something on it.”

“Does it?” said Mother. And Father said, “Yes, there's a drop right there,” and he fingered the red flecks on the white silk and then pretended to bite her white shoulder, but she pushed him away.

And so they went back to the beautiful dining-room. But—oh! What had happened? There were people, a half-dozen guests, slumped forward over the table. Sun thought it very naughty of them to have fallen asleep at the table and they had made such a terrible mess. The ribbons and the roses were all pulled untied. The little red table napkins lay on the floor, all the shining plates were dirty and all the winking glasses. The lovely food that the man had trimmed was all thrown about, and there were bones and bits and fruit peels and shells everywhere. There was even a bottle lying down with stuff coming out of it on to the cloth still and nobody had stood it up again.

He moved closer and saw that the guests of the feast weren't sleeping in their chairs. Their little egg shells of sugar were cracked open and inside each was an obsidian marble. Their throats were slit with red gashes and their blood had spilt onto the tablecloth and all over their fine clothes. At the places of the guests who had left a white pearl nestled in the broken shells.

And the ice castle with the snow roof in the middle of blood-soaked cloth was broken—broken—half melted away in the centre of the table.

Nothing had survived the feast.

“Come on, Sun,” said Father, pretending not to notice.

Moon lifted up her pyjama legs and shuffled up to the table and stood on a chair, squeaking away.

“Have a bit of this ice,” said Father, smashing in some more of the roof.

Mother took a little plate and held it for him; she put her other arm round his neck.

“Daddy. Daddy,” shrieked Moon. “The little handle's left. The little nut. Can I eat it?” And she placed one hand on the shoulder of a dead guest, leant forward and picked the nut out of the door and scrunched it up, biting hard and blinking.