Papa had sent Mark and Dank to the nursery in disgrace. Mark leaned over the back of Jenny’s chair and rocked her. His face was red but tight; and as he rocked he smiled because of his punishment.
Dank lay on the floor on his stomach, his shoulders hunched, raised on his elbows, his chin supported by his clenched fists. He was a dark and white boy with dusty eyelashes and rough, doggy hair. He had puckered up his mouth and made it small; under the scowl of his twisted eyebrows he was looking at nothing.
“It’s no worse for you than it is for Master Mark,” said Jenny.
“Isn’t it? Tib was my dog. If he hadn’t been my dog Papa wouldn’t have teased him, and Mamma wouldn’t have sent him back to Aunt Charlotte, and Aunt Charlotte wouldn’t have let him be run over.”
“Yes. But what did you say to your Papa?”
“I said I wish Tib had bitten him. So I do. And Mark said it would have served him jolly well right.”
“So it would,” said Mark.
Roddy had turned his back on them. Nobody was taking any notice of him; so he sang aloud to himself the song he was forbidden to sing:
“John Brown’s body lies a-rotting in his grave,
John Brown’s body lies a-rotting in his grave—”
The song seemed to burst out of Roddy’s beautiful white face; his pink lips twirled and tilted; his golden curls bobbed and nodded to the tune.
“John Brown’s body lies a-rotting in his grave,
As we go marching on!”
“When I grow up,” said Dank, “I’ll kill Papa for killing Tibby. I’ll bore holes in his face with Mark’s gimlet. I’ll cut pieces out of him. I’ll get the matches and set fire to his beard. I’ll—I’ll hurt him.”
“I don’t think I shall,” said Mark. “But if I do I shan’t kick up a silly row about it first.”
“It’s all very well for you. You’d kick up a row if Tibby was your dog.”
Mary had forgotten Tibby. Now she remembered.
“Where’s Tibby? I want him.”
“Tibby’s dead,” said Jenny.
“What’s ‘dead’?”
“Never you mind.”
Roddy was singing:
“ ‘And from his nose and to his chin The worms crawled out and the worms crawled in’—
“That’s dead,” said Roddy.
V
You never knew when Aunt Charlotte mightn’t send something. She forgot your birthday and sometimes Christmas; but, to make up for that, she remembered in between. Every time she was going to be married she remembered.
Sarah the cat came too long after Mark’s twelfth birthday to be his birthday present. There was no message with her except that Aunt Charlotte was going to be married and didn’t want her any more. Whenever Aunt Charlotte was going to be married she sent you something she didn’t want.
Sarah was a white cat with a pink nose and pink lips and pink pads under her paws. Her tabby hood came down in a peak between her green eyes. Her tabby cape went on along the back of her tail, tapering to the tip. Sarah crouched against the fireguard, her haunches raised, her head sunk back on her shoulders, and her paws tucked in under her white, pouting breast.
Mark stooped over her; his mouth smiled its small, firm smile; his eyes shone as he stroked her. Sarah raised her haunches under the caressing hand.
Mary’s body was still. Something stirred and tightened in it when she looked at Sarah.
“I want Sarah,” she said.
“You can’t have her,” said Jenny. “She’s Master Mark’s cat.”
She wanted her more than Roddy’s bricks and Dank’s animal book or Mark’s soldiers. She trembled when she held her in her arms and kissed her and smelt the warm, sweet, sleepy smell that came from the top of her head.
“Little girls can’t have everything they want,” said Jenny.
“I wanted her before you did,” said Dank. “You’re too little to have a cat at all.”
He sat on the table swinging his legs. His dark, mournful eyes watched Mark under their doggy scowl. He looked like Tibby, the terrier that Mamma sent away because Papa teased him.
“Sarah isn’t your cat either, Master Daniel. Your Aunt Charlotte gave her to your Mamma, and your Mamma gave her to Master Mark.”
“She ought to have given her to me. She took my dog away.”
“I gave her to you,” said Mark.
“And I gave her to you back again.”
“Well then, she’s half our cat.”
“I want her,” said Mary. She said it again and again.
Mamma came and took her into the room with the big bed.
The gas blazed in the white globes. Lovely white lights washed like water over the polished yellow furniture: the bed, the great high wardrobe, the chests of drawers, the twisted poles of the looking-glass. There were soft rounds and edges of blond light on the white marble chimneypiece and the white marble washstand. The drawn curtains were covered with shining silver patterns on a sleek green ground that shone. All these things showed again in the long, flashing mirrors.
Mary looked round the room and wondered why the squat grey men had gone out of the curtains.
“Don’t look about you,” said Mamma. “Look at me. Why do you want Sarah?”
She had forgotten Sarah.
“Because,” she said, “Sarah is so sweet.”
“Mamma gave Sarah to Mark. Mary mustn’t want what isn’t given her. Mark doesn’t say, ‘I want Mary’s dollies.’ Papa doesn’t say, ‘I want Mamma’s workbox.’ ”
“But I want Sarah.”
“And that’s selfish and self-willed.”
Mamma sat down on the low chair at the foot of the bed.
“God,” she said, “hates selfishness and self-will. God is grieved every time Mary is self-willed and selfish. He wants her to give up her will.”
When Mamma talked about God she took you on her lap and you played with the gold tassel on her watch chain. Her face was solemn and tender. She spoke softly. She was afraid that God might hear her talking about him and wouldn’t like it.
Mary knelt in Mamma’s lap and said “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” and “Our Father,” and played with
