The Wind on the Moon (4 page)

Mrs. Palfrey paid no attention to Miss Serendip, but sadly shook her head, and sighed, ‘How you children do worry me! I must take you to see Dr. Fosfar — but will you promise me, Dinah, not to bring some horrid magpie who might steal his glass eye?'

‘I don't like Dr. Fosfar,' said Dinah.

‘Nor do I,' said Dorinda.

‘But you can't go about looking like match-sticks,' said their mother, and stood beside them, shaking her head very sadly. She was wearing one of her long necklaces, of yellow beads, and as she turned to look first at Dinah, then at Dorinda, it swung out and became entangled in a twig of the apple-tree.

‘Oh, how annoying!' she exclaimed, and foolishly took a backward step. The string of the necklace broke, and all the beads fell into the grass.

‘Beads,' said Miss Serendip, ‘are probably the oldest form of ornament known to man. They have been found, not only in the ancient ruins of Babylon, but in primitive Stone Age dwellings in Northern Europe.'

‘That doesn't make it easier to find them here,' said Mrs. Palfrey. Her voice was angry, and Miss Serendip hurriedly went down on her knees beside her. ‘Let me help you,' she said.

‘Dinah! Dorinda!' called Mrs. Palfrey. ‘Come and look for my beads!'

‘But Dinah and Dorinda had gone. They hurried through the garden, and past the kitchen-garden, to a rough lawn beyond it on which, every washing-day, the clothes were hung to dry. The lawn was surrounded by a holly hedge, a thick and sturdy hedge, a glittering green in the winter sun.

‘Do we really look like matches?' asked Dinah.

‘You do,' said Dorinda, screwing up her eyes. ‘Well, not exactly, of course, but rather like.'

‘So do you,' said Dinah. ‘Go farther away. A little farther still. Yes, you look very like a match-stick.'

Dorinda began to cry again.

‘Stop crying,' said Dinah. ‘Crying makes us worse.'

‘I thought we should enjoy being naughty,' sobbed Dorinda, ‘but we haven't really enjoyed it so far.'

‘We enjoyed eating too much,' said Dinah.

‘But not having pins stuck into us,' said Dorinda, ‘nor having to cry for days and days.'

‘We did enjoy crying to begin with,' said Dinah. ‘It was very nice and satisfying. Just to let yourself go, and howl and sob like anything, and make no effort to stop, is quite a luxury, I think.'

‘But it lasted too long,' said Dorinda.

‘Yes, we have cried too much. The trouble is—I have just thought of this—that we shall have to
learn
to be naughty. You know how hard it is to learn to be good. Well, it may be just as hard to learn to be naughty. To be naughty in a suitable way, I mean.'

At that moment they heard behind them a voice saying, ‘There they are. Two match-sticks!'

‘Matches on the washing-green,' said another voice. ‘Well, I never!'

Quickly they looked round, and saw, leaning over the hedge, Catherine Crumb the baker's daughter, and Mrs. Taper the draper's wife. Mrs. Taper, who was very short-sighted, was determined to get as good a view as possible, so she thrust herself into the hedge, and the branches bent before her, and her face grew red with the effort she was making. Catherine Crumb was jumping up and down with her black hair flapping like a big black crow in a hurry to get home, but Dinah and Dorinda stood perfectly still. They were too frightened to move.

‘Two match-sticks,' repeated Mrs. Taper. ‘Well, did you ever!'

‘I told you so,' said Catherine Crumb.

She had indeed. She had been spying on Dinah and Dorinda for several days, and while they were crying under the apple-tree, she was hidden among the rhododendrons that grew beneath the garden wall. She had heard their mother liken them to match-sticks, and seeing at once a chance of mischief, she hurried away to make it. The garden gate led into a lane, and in the lane Catherine Crumb met Mrs. Taper the draper's wife.

‘I've just seen something,' said Catherine Crumb.

‘And what was that?' asked Mrs. Taper.

‘Two big matches,' said Catherine Crumb.

‘Well, that's nothing to boast about,' said Mrs. Taper.

‘But these weren't ordinary matches,' said Catherine Crumb. ‘They were two - legged matches.'

‘I declare!' said Mrs. Taper.

‘Would you like to see them?' asked Catherine Crumb.

‘That I would,' said Mrs. Taper.

‘They're on the washing-green,' said Catherine Crumb, and they hurried down the lane till they came to the holly hedge. ‘There they are,' she exclaimed.

‘I never did!' said Mrs. Taper, when she had pushed her way into the very middle of the hedge. ‘No, I never did expect to see a sight like that! Two-legged matches indeed! It's a wonderful world we live in.'

‘What do you think we should do with them?' asked Catherine Crumb.

Dinah and Dorinda, still too frightened to move, waited breathless for the answer.

Mrs. Taper thought very hard, and then with triumph in her voice declared, ‘Why, strike them, to be sure! If they're matches, we ought to strike them.'

‘That's what I thought,' said Catherine Crumb.

‘It's what matches are made for,' said Mrs. Taper. ‘To be struck.' And she laughed again and again.

Now when Mrs. Taper laughed, she made a noise like someone rattling pebbles in a biscuit-tin, and Dinah and Dorinda, hearing that horrible noise, were more frightened than ever. But now their fright made them run, and they ran into the house as quickly as their shrivelled legs would carry them, and never stopped till they were safe in their own room with the door locked.

Then Catherine Crumb also ran away, leaving Mrs. Taper stuck fast in the holly hedge. Mrs. Taper, who was far too short-sighted to see where everyone had gone, was quite bewildered to find herself alone. She was still more worried when she found that she could not get out of the hedge. Branches stuck into her from all sides, and held her prisoner. Her face grew redder and redder as she struggled to get free. Her hat came off and fell into the garden, and she shouted for help.

‘Help, help!' she cried, and presently heard heavy footsteps in the lane. ‘Who's that?' she demanded.

‘It's me, Mrs. Taper,' said a deep voice, which Mrs. Taper recognised as that of Constable Drum.

‘Help me out,' she cried.

‘Not so fast,' said the Constable. ‘You must first tell me how you came to be in such a position. Were you by any chance contemplating a felony? I perceive, hanging on the clothes-line, two pairs of silk stockings. Perhaps you were about to steal them, Mrs. Taper?'

‘Oh, how dare you!' she exclaimed. ‘Why, the very idea of such a thing would never enter my head. I'm the very soul of honesty, which everybody knows.'

‘That may be so,' said Constable Drum, ‘but the Law pays no attention to what everybody knows. The Law is guided only by evidence, and the evidence, Mrs. Taper, is sadly against you. My duty is clearer than ink; I shall have to put you in clink. In the name of the Law, Mrs. Taper, I hereby arrest you. God save the King!'

Thereupon Constable Drum pulled Mrs. Taper out of the hedge, and handcuffed her right wrist to his left one. And in spite of all her protests, which were loud and many, he marched her away to prison.

Dinah and Dorinda, in the meantime, were having a very serious discussion.

‘It seems to me,' said Dinah, ‘that we have to make up our minds either to stop being naughty altogether, or to be naughty in a sensible way. Do you want to stop?'

‘No,' said Dorinda. ‘Why, we've only just started. It would be cowardly to stop already.'

‘Then we shall have to be sensible. There's no point in being naughty if it only makes us unhappy.'

‘I want revenge,' said Dorinda.

‘On Mrs. Taper and Catherine Crumb?'

‘And on all the village people who stuck pins in us as well.'

‘Well, I think you're perfectly right. But how are we going to do it without getting more pins stuck in us, or being made to cry in some other way?'

‘I don't know. But you can think of something, Dinah. You always have good ideas.'

‘I'm beginning to think of something already,' said Dinah. ‘You remember how frightened all the village people were when a grizzly bear walked into Mr. Horrabin the ironmonger's?'

‘I remember,' said Dorinda. ‘Though the bear didn't do anything except give Mr. Horrabin an envelope with Sir Lankester Lemon's name and address on it.'

‘He just wanted to get into Sir Lankester's zoo,' said Dinah. ‘But everybody was terribly frightened, and quite a lot of people climbed up trees to get away from him.'

‘He was a very nice bear,' said Dorinda, ‘and he's still in the zoo. I saw him there not very long ago.'

‘Well, we're going to frighten people just as badly as he did.'

‘Oh, how?' asked Dorinda. ‘Do tell me how!'

‘I shall tell you to-morrow,' said Dinah, ‘as soon as I have quite made up my mind.'

‘It will be lovely to have our revenge,' said Dorinda.

Dinah went to a table on which stood a large blue-and-white jug of milk, and poured out two glasses. She gave one to Dorinda.

‘You remember,' she asked, ‘how Father was always drinking toasts? To the King, and to Absent Friends, and to the Regiment, and the Memory of Nelson, and that sort of thing? Well, we're going to drink a toast. To Revenge!'

‘To Revenge!' said Dorinda, and drank her milk so quickly that she nearly choked. When she was feeling better, she asked, ‘What are you going to tell me to-morrow?'

Dinah tiptoed to the door and quietly opened it to make sure there was no one on the other side listening at the keyhole. Then she tiptoed back and whispered, ‘As soon as we are better, and quite strong again, I'm going to Mrs. Grimble's, and she will help us to do something really dreadful!'

It was several weeks later. Lying between the roots of an oak-tree at the edge of the Forest of Weal, Dorinda waited patiently for her sister. She had wanted very much to go with Dinah to see Mrs. Grimble, but Dinah had said no. Mrs. Grimble, she explained, wasn't really fond of visitors, and it would be a pity to upset her by taking someone whom she didn't know. Because if that happened, she would simply make herself invisible, and they might waste the whole morning looking for her and finding nothing. And sometimes, to people who went to see her merely out of curiosity, she was extremely rude, and shouted at them in a very frightening way. Everybody was agreed that one of the most alarming things in the world was to be called rude names by an invisible Mrs. Grimble.

It would be wiser, then, said Dinah, for her to go alone; and Dorinda, though naturally disappointed, agreed. Dorinda nearly always agreed with her sister, whom she admired very much because she was clever and had lovely yellow hair. And Dinah, for her part, admired Dorinda very much because she was brave and had beautiful dark hair.

So Dorinda waited patiently, and after a long time she saw Dinah walking along an aisle in the forest, and ran to meet her. Both of them were looking very well, and feeling perfectly strong, because they had long since stopped crying, and had eaten a good supper the night before and a still larger breakfast that morning.

‘What did Mrs. Grimble say?' cried Dorinda. ‘Is she going to help us? What did she look like? When are we going to have our revenge? What shall we have to do? Oh, do hurry up and tell me, Dinah!'

‘You can carry this, if you like,' said Dinah, and gave her sister a little box made of plaited grass. ‘But take care of it, because it's very valuable.'

‘Did Mrs. Grimble give it you? Is it magic?' asked Dorinda.

‘Yes,' said Dinah, and they both sat down between the roots of the oak-tree.

‘Now, listen,' said Dinah, ‘and I'll tell you just what happened. Well, to begin with, I found Mrs. Grimble at home. She was having a cup of tea, and talking to Willy her billy-goat and Moses her magpie. I don't quite know what they were talking about, but it had something to do with one of the animals in Sir Lankester Lemon's zoo. The golden puma, I think.'

‘I've seen it,' said Dorinda. ‘It's the most beautiful puma I've ever seen.'

‘You haven't seen very many, of course,' said Dinah.

‘Neither have you,' said Dorinda.

‘That's true,' said Dinah regretfully, ‘but it doesn't matter at the moment, because we're talking about Mrs. Grimble, not pumas. Well, she made Willy and Moses go outside, and she gave me a cup of wild-strawberry juice, which was very nice, and I told her about everything that had happened to us. I told her that you wanted revenge on the village people, and she said that showed you had a proper spirit, and that some day I could take you to see her.'

‘How lovely!' said Dorinda in great excitement. ‘When shall we go? To-morrow?'

‘Not till you're a lot older,' said Dinah firmly. ‘I never dreamt of going to see Mrs. Grimble when I was your age.'