Mary Olivier: a Life Part 4

Every day you went out on to the steps to see if the sumach tree had grown.

VIII.

The white lamb stood on the table beside her cot.

Mamma put it there every night so that she could see it first thing in the morning when she woke.

She had had a birthday. Suddenly in the middle of the night she was five years old.

She had kept on waking up with the excitement of it. Then, in the dark twilight of the room, she had seen a bulky thing inside the cot, leaning up against the rail. It stuck out queerly and its weight dragged the counterpane tight over her feet.

The birthday present. What she saw was not its real shape. When she poked it, stiff paper bent in and crackled; and she could feel something big and solid underneath. She lay quiet and happy, trying to guess what it could be, and fell asleep again.

It was the white lamb. It stood on a green stand. It smelt of dried hay and gum and paint like the other toy animals, but its white coat had a dull, woolly smell, and that was the real smell of the lamb. Its large, slanting eyes stared off over its ears into the far corners of the room, so that it never looked at you. This made her feel sometimes that the lamb didn't love her, and sometimes that it was frightened and wanted to be comforted.

She trembled when first she stroked it and held it to her face, and sniffed its lamby smell.

Papa looked down at her. He was smiling; and when she looked up at him she was not afraid. She had the same feeling that came sometimes when she sat in Mamma's lap and Mamma talked about G.o.d and Jesus. Papa was sacred and holy.

He had given her the lamb.

It was the end of her birthday; Mamma and Jenny were putting her to bed. She felt weak and tired, and sad because it was all over.

"Come to that," said Jenny, "your birthday was over at five minutes past twelve this morning."

"When will it come again?"

"Not for a whole year," said Mamma.

"I wish it would come to-morrow."

Mamma shook her head at her. "You want to be spoiled and petted every day."

"No. No. I want--I want--"

"She doesn't know what she wants," said Jenny.

"Yes. I do. I _do_."

"Well--"

"I want to love Papa every day. 'Cause he gave me my lamb."

"Oh," said Mamma, "if you only love people because they give you birthday presents--"

"But I don't--I don't--really and truly--"

"You didn't ought to have no more birthdays," said Jenny, "if they make you cry."

Why couldn't they see that crying meant that she wanted Papa to be sacred and holy every day?

The day after the birthday when Papa went about the same as ever, looking big and frightening, when he "Baa'd" into her face and called out, "Mary had a little lamb!" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," she looked after him sorrowfully and thought: "Papa gave me my lamb."

IX.

One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell Grange.

They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room, and when she came in they stopped and whispered.

Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live lamb.

Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave you anything. And anyhow the lamb wasn't born yet and couldn't come for weeks and weeks.

Every morning she asked, "Has my new lamb come? When is it coming? Do you think it will come to-day?"

She could keep on sitting still quite a long time by merely thinking about the new lamb. It would run beside her when she played in the garden. It would eat gra.s.s out of her hand. She would tie a ribbon round its neck and lead it up and down the lane. At these moments she forgot the toy lamb. It stood on the chest of drawers in the nursery, looking off into the corners of the room, neglected.

By the time Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella sent for her to come and see the lamb, she knew exactly what it would be like and what would happen.

She saw it looking like the lambs in the Bible Picture Book, fat, and covered with thick, pure white wool. She saw Uncle Edward, with his yellow face and big nose and black whiskers, coming to her across the lawn at Chadwell Grange, carrying the lamb over his shoulder like Jesus.

It was a cold morning. They drove a long time in Uncle Edward's carriage, over the hard, loud roads, between fields white with frost, and Uncle Edward was not on his lawn.

Aunt Bella stood in the big hall, waiting for them. She looked much larger and more important than Mamma.

"Aunt Bella, have you got my new lamb?"

She tried not to shriek it out, because Aunt Bella was nearly always poorly, and Mamma told her that if you shrieked at her she would be ill.

Mamma said "Sh-sh-sh!" And Aunt Bella whispered something and she heard Mamma answer, "Better not."

"If she _sees_ it," said Aunt Bella, "she'll understand."

Mamma shook her head at Aunt Bella.

"Edward would like it," said Aunt Bella. "He wanted to give it her himself. It's _his_ present."

Mamma took her hand and they followed Aunt Bella through the servants'

hall into the kitchen. The servants were all there, Rose and Annie and Cook, and Mrs. Fisher, the housekeeper, and Giles, the young footman.

They all stared at her in a queer, kind way as she came in.

A low screen was drawn close round one corner of the fireplace; Uncle Edward and Pidgeon, the bailiff, were doing something to it with a yellow horse-cloth.

Uncle Edward came to her, looking down the side of his big nose. He led her to the screen and drew it away.

Something lay on the floor wrapped in a piece of dirty blanket. When Uncle Edward pushed back the blanket a bad smell came out. He said, "Here's your lamb, Mary. You're just in time."

She saw a brownish grey animal with a queer, hammer-shaped head and long black legs. Its body was drawn out and knotted like an enormous maggot. It lay twisted to one side and its eyes were shut.