Tennis Shoes (2 page)

The children were rather bright as a family. Susan was clever at lessons. She was always working with girls at least a year older than herself. Jim was good at swimming. Nicky was not outstanding, she was only ordinarily intelligent, and she was lazy; she was generally about the oldest in her class at school and not at the top of it. David had a really good singing voice. They were all a bit ashamed of this in David, because he had to sing songs like
Cherry Ripe
at concerts in aid of charities and churches. He was always encored and was cocky for days afterwards. The others thought it would be a very good thing when his voice broke. There was one thing they were all good at, and that was tennis.

The children's grandfather, their father's father, had been first-class at tennis. In his day it had been an odd thing to be first-class at. Most people played pat-ball and were not ashamed of it. Their father had been good, too, but of course his leg injury put an end to his playing. It was when Susan and Jim were nine, Nicky nearly seven, and David four, that tennis first became important in their lives. They were staying with their grandfather. Pinny had taken them down to play in the garden. Their father had given the twins rackets for their last birthday, and they were on the tennis-court playing a match of a sort. While they were in the middle of it their grandfather, father, and mother came out and sat and watched the game. Grandfather saw Jim serve a ball and Susan return it, and he stiffened like an old war-horse who smells gunpowder after many years.

‘Edward, there's style about those two. What are you going to do about it?'

Dr. Heath nodded.

‘I know. I've been watching them. Might put up a board in the garden at home and give them a bit of practice.'

Grandfather grunted.

‘That's a bit like learning to swim a hundred miles from the sea. Couldn't they join a club where they can practise all the year round?'

Mrs. Heath made a face at her husband behind grandfather's back. The face was meant to say: ‘Agree with him, but of course we can't afford it.' Grandfather said he was a little short-sighted but he never missed things like faces made behind his back.

‘Now then, Mollie, I know what that face means. But where there's a will there's a way.'

The match between Jim and Susan came to an end. Jim had won. Susan had been winning, but her game had gone right off the moment she realized the grown-ups were watching. Grandfather got up and waved his stick at Pinny.

‘Hi! Put Nicky and David on the court. I'm coming down to serve a few balls at 'em. He turned round and he winked at his son, as much as to say: ‘Trust the old man to see if they're going to be any good.'

Neither Nicky nor David had played much. There was only a court when they were staying with grandfather and the only rackets were the ones that belonged to the twins, and they were not often allowed to borrow them. They were enchanted to play a game with grandfather. Of course it was not a bit like tennis. Balls going all over the place and not very often over the net, but grandfather seemed pleased, and only stopped serving to them because Pinny said that schoolroom tea was ready.

When the children had gone in grandfather came back to his chair.

‘Let 'em have a chance.' He raised his left eyebrow and the sun glinted on his little cluster of red hairs. ‘I know it costs money, and things are a bit tight. But it's wonderful how you can save a bit. What you need is a money-box.' He nudged his daughter-in-law. ‘That's true, eh, Mollie? Now what I shall do is to drive into Salisbury to-morrow. I saw something at old Burns the goldsmith's the other day. Just the thing. I'll be off and get it.'

He was as good as his word. The next morning there was the most tremendous bustle. Grandfather usually did not come down until about eleven, because of his heart being weak. This morning, however, he was standing in the hall at half-past ten with James, his manservant. James had a plaid rug over his arm. Grandfather never used a motor-car. Hibbert, the coachman, had been coachman to his father. He could never learn to drive a car as he was a very old man. Besides, he would never have tried, for he loved horses. ‘Horses are good enough for me until old Hibbert goes,' grandfather always said; and Hibbert said: ‘Master he be set on horses and so be I.' So it was the dog-cart that drew up at the front door.

Grandfather looked at the four children.

‘How about a drive to Salisbury?' His eyes twinkled when he asked this because he knew they would say ‘No.' Driving in the dog-cart meant going with their backs to the horses, and they were all sick that way round.

Instead of going they helped to tuck him in under his plaid rug beside Hibbert and they watched James get up on the back seat, and then they stood on the steps and waved good-bye.

At half-past twelve grandfather came driving back. He climbed out of his seat carefully, then he turned to James.

‘Give me that parcel.' He nodded to the children and took a square brown parcel from James. ‘You come with me.' His look included Dr. and Mrs. Heath and Pinny. He marched into the dining-room with them all trailing behind. In the dining-room the table was being laid for lunch. Grandfather never cared about things like tables being laid, and he swept back the cloth. The cloth upset the salt-cellar. Susan was shocked to see that grandfather never bothered to throw salt over his left shoulder, so she did a little salt-throwing herself to keep ill-luck from him. Of course she did not believe that salt really brought ill-luck, but all the same it made her feel worried inside to see it upset and no precautions taken.

Grandfather, having made a space for himself on the table, sat down in his own chair which was a Hepplewhite and beautiful to look at. He took the carving-knife and cut the string of the parcel. First there was a layer of brown paper, then there was a cardboard box, and then tissue-paper. Grandfather's fingers were a little stiff with rheumatism. He took a tremendous time undoing the tissue-paper, but because of the stiffness and the rheumatism none of the children liked to say: ‘Oh, do hurry up!' When the tissue-paper was undone that was not the end, for the thing itself was wrapped in a piece of cotton-wool. Even grandfather's slow fingers could not fumble much over cotton-wool. He pulled off the last piece and took out what he had bought. It was a little silver house.

They all took in their breath rather loudly. The little house was most beautifully made. It looked a cross between the wolf-proof house the sensible pig built in Walt Disney's cartoon and something magic, rather like the witch's house in
Hänsel and Gretel
. The downstair rooms had bow-windows. There were eaves in the roof. The chimneys had a twisted look, as if they had been up a long time and had got rather blown about.

Grandfather looked at them all.

‘Know what this is?'

The children examined the house more closely. They were not quite sure what grandfather meant. It was obviously a toy house made of silver. If he meant ‘what was it for,' that was different. Susan thought it might be meant for a very tiny doll to live in. Jim hoped that perhaps it had works inside and would be a clock or perhaps that kind of musical-box that has a prickly thing that turns round and makes notes. Nicky suggested that perhaps the roof came off and it was full of chocolates. David said:

‘Per'venture it's for my farm.'

Grandfather laughed so much at David trying to use so long a word (for people at that date had not begun to get used to him being fond of long words) that he almost forgot the house. Then he remembered and showed them. He took hold of one of the chimneys and pulled it down. The children leant over his arm to see what it was. The chimney was on a hinge, and when it was pulled back there was a slot underneath. The house was a money-box. The front door had a real lock and grandfather had a tiny key which fitted it. When the front door was open it showed that inside the house was hollow. When you put money in the slot under the chimney it fell straight through to where the hall ought to be. When you wanted to get the money out again you opened the front door and pulled it out on to the front steps, or drive, or whatever you liked to think would be there. Grandfather let them see this happen. He opened his note-case and took out four one-pound notes.

‘Here is a pound each, me dears.' He handed them round, and pulled back the chimney. ‘Come on, twins, yours first.'

It was fun to see the notes come tumbling through, because although, of course, one part of you knew that the whole house was hollow, and that naturally if you put something in at the top it would drop to the bottom, the other half could not help thinking of the pound note sliding down the bedroom chimney and walking in a very dignified way to the door and along the passage and then, step by step, down the stairs to the hall.

‘What's the money for?' Jim asked.

Grandfather pulled David between his knees.

‘I was just going to tell you that. Years ago, when I was no bigger than Jim, I was given my first tennis-racket. It was a funny present, for where I lived there was no tennis-court. We had a house in a big London square, and Londoners, especially children, had no tennis-courts or clubs in those days. I used to look at that racket and wish I could play with it. Of course I took it across to the square gardens and we used it for rounders and tip-and-run, but I always thought those games rather a come-down for a lordly thing like a tennis-racket.'

‘Daddy gave Jim and me our rackets for our last birthday,' Susan put in.

‘I know, my dear.' Grandfather lifted his left eyebrow at her and the red hairs on it stood out more stiffly even than usual; it was a way they had when he was interested in what he was saying. ‘That's just the point. I have an idea that you might be some good at tennis. It's fun playing a game, however you play it; but to be first-class! That really is worth while. But games cost money, especially in London. That's why I bought you this money-box. It's where the savings can go which will keep you in rackets and balls and pay your subscription to a club.'

Jim looked at the front door.

‘Will we always have to bring it down here when we want some money out of it?'

Grandfather held out the key to his son.

‘No. I'm giving it to your father. Put it on your watch-chain, Edward.'

Nicky frowned at the house, with her head on one side.

‘What I don't see,' she said at last, ‘is, who except you is going to put the money in?'

Jim lifted the chimney and tried to look inside.

We know there are four pounds in. That's an awful lot of money. It will probably last years and years.'

Grandfather shook his head.

‘Wish it would. Four pounds won't even stand the rackets and the balls. Then, later on, there'll be tournaments. If you're going to be any good at all, you must play in a tournament or two.'

‘Tournaments!' They all stared at him.

‘I say, do you mean proper ones with people watching?' Jim asked.

‘That's right,' grandfather nodded. ‘There's all sorts of expenses. Four pounds won't last long.'

‘It won't, indeed!' Mrs. Heath agreed.

‘I suggest'—grandfather fingered the box as though he were fond of it—‘that everybody puts something in when they can.' He smiled down at David who was fiddling in his pockets. ‘Even if it's only a farthing.'

‘That's right.' Pinny felt the whole conversation was most admirable. ‘A penny saved to-day is a pound to-morrow.'

‘Not always,' Jim objected. ‘I've had a penny since last Saturday. I saved it because it wasn't enough to buy anything I wanted, and it isn't a pound yet, it's still just a penny.'

Pinny smiled.

‘It's been turned over so often in your pocket, Jim, that I'm afraid it's the rolling stone gathering no moss.'

‘But rolling stones do,' Jim argued. ‘I saw a stone once——'

‘Never mind, son,' Dr. Heath interrupted. ‘I think I heard the bell for your dinner.'

They all turned to go, then Susan came back.

‘Thank you for the house, grandfather. What shall we call it?'

He looked at it thoughtfully.

‘I don't know. What do you think?'

‘“Bella Vista” is sweetly pretty,' Pinny suggested.

‘It ought to have something to do with tennis or money,' Jim pointed out, trying not to show how stupid he thought Pinny's idea was.

Susan clasped her hands at the back of her neck, which was a way she had when she got an idea.

‘Let's call it “The Tennis House.”'

The other three came back to the table. They turned the house round to make sure the name would suit it. They moved the chimney and shook it to see that the notes were still inside.

David finished examining it first.

‘I think “The Tennis House” is an admirable name.'

So ‘The Tennis House' the money-box became.

CHAPTER II

THE PRACTICE WALL

You would have thought that, having the silver house, something would have been done about learning tennis the moment the family got back to Tulse Hill. It was not.

On the journey back from grandfather's, Dr. and Mrs. Heath travelled in one carriage and Pinny and the four children in another. This was because the train was crowded. In Dr. and Mrs. Heath's carriage there was a woman and five children, a clergyman, an old lady with an annoying cough and a canary, and a farmer. In Pinny's and the children's carriage there were another family and their governess. They looked very dressed-up and affected sort of children, so, as the Heaths were in the carriage first and had got the windows, they turned their backs on them and played ‘Who can see the most cars?' Susan and David against Jim and Nicky. They were so busy looking for cars that they never noticed the girl who sat next to Nicky. They would have noticed her in the ordinary way as she had a dreadfully swollen face, and they would have wanted to know why. After they had been travelling about an hour Dr. Heath came in to see how they were getting on. He saw the swollen face, and made a signal to them all to come out into the corridor. He told them he didn't like the look of that face at all and they were not to go back into the carriage. Of course, as they had not noticed the face they had to look at it through the window, one by one so as not to be rude. The governess of the other children saw them looking and frowned, and made the child with the swollen face sit with her back to the corridor. They had all seen it by then, so it did not matter. Jim said he thought it was a bad tooth. Nicky thought a bee might have stung her. David said it was a ‘'brasion.' Susan told them they were all stupid, obviously it was something infectious or daddy would not have fussed. They asked Pinny what made your face swell. Jim said he thought it was the Black Death because he was doing that in history, but Pinny said: ‘Mumps.'