Lovers Make Moan

“I hope it’s house-trained,” said Laura.

“No, it isn’t. You can’t house-train a pig, Uncle Carey says, any more than you can house-train a horse. I would love a little tiny horse for a pet.”

“You’ve been round and about quite a bit, haven’t you, these last weeks?”

“Oh, yes, it’s been lovely, and Mummy sends us postcards from all the places where the ship calls. We went to Scotland for a fortnight, too, didn’t we?”

“Oh, yes, to my brother’s house. I took you, didn’t I? I’m sorry I couldn’t stay,” said Laura.

“If he’s your brother, why is his name Menzies?”

“It used to be my name before I married. Women change their surnames when they marry. Before your Aunt Deb married your Uncle Jon her name was Miss Deborah Katherine St Piran Cloud.”

“That’s a nice name. Will you let me do it on your typewriter?”

“Yes, if your fingers aren’t sticky. What did you do in Scotland after I left?”

“We crawled on our bellies and saw the deer, and a wild cat killed one of the chickens.”

“What else?”

“We ate our porridge standing up.”

“Where is The Dream to be staged?”

“In our garden. It’s an annual event, but we’ve never been in it before. Generally it’s done in the Town Hall, but this time it’s to be outdoors, so I think that’s why Uncle Jon and Auntie Deb and us are in it, because they want to use our garden. Well, they’d have to let us be in it, wouldn’t they?”

“To think that one so young can be so cynical!”

“What’s cynercal?”

“According to the Oxford Dictionary, it means being incredulous of human goodness,” said Dame Beatrice.

“What’s incredilous?”

“Incredulous,” said Laura.

“Incredulous. What is it?”

“Not believing, O Socrates.”

“What’s Sockertees?”

“Oh, my God!”

“Is that swearing?”

“No, it’s a cry for help, in this instance.”

“Are you sorry we’re only staying a week?”

“Ask me that again when the week is up,” said Laura. “Let’s go and look for bluebells in the woods.”

“We’re not allowed to pick the wild flowers. Mummy says we’re conversationists.”

“One of you is, at any rate, and who said anything about picking them? Anyway, I rather fancy you mean conservationists.”

“Yes. Wild flowers are not very interesting when you’re not allowed to pick them, though, are they? Why is it all right for Jasper Lynn to pick the wild flowers if we mustn’t?”

“Who is Jasper Lynn?”

“A big boy. He belongs to Mr and Mrs Lynn and he picked the wild flowers to give to Mrs Bourton and he’s Egeus. It is only a little part and a girl was going to have it, but when Mrs Lynn said Jasper must be in it, Mr Lynn said, ‘only a little part then, he’s got his A-levels’, so Mr Yorke said, ‘what about Egeus? We could paint some wrinkles on him and give him a beard’.”

“So Jasper is Egeus. Does he want the part? It’s not a very attractive one, to my way of thinking—just a bossy old father objecting to his daughter marrying the man of her choice,” said Laura.

“Jasper didn’t want to be in it at all at first, but when Auntie Deb told Mrs Lynn how to be Helena and Mrs Lynn said Mrs Bourton ought to be Hermia, Jasper said he would be Egeus and Mr Lynn laughed a lot and said a good chance to stand there and make sheep’s eyes at Barbara. What does that mean?—make sheep’s eyes?”

“Calf-love. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Uncle Jon had a calf when we went last year. It was a lovely little bull-calf and when you sang the French anthem it would join in.”

“Extraordinary.”

“Yes, it was. It wouldn’t join in any other song, only in the—how do you say it?”

“La Marseillaise. How patriotic of it. I knew a French breed had been introduced over here, but I did not know it could sing.”

“It sang like Edmund. Jasper Lynn can sing. He sang about a melody that’s sweetly played in tune. Well, it wouldn’t be a melody if it wasn’t, would it?”

“You know what a melody is, then?”