Wet Magic · Chapter 3 (2/3)

“Thank you,” said Francis, “I think we will.” And the four went through the opened canvas into the pleasant yellow dusty twilight which was the inside of a squarish sort of tent, with an opening at the end, and through that opening you could see the sawdust-covered ring of the circus and benches all around it, and two men just finishing covering the front benches with red cotton strips.

“Where’s the Mermaid?” Mavis asked a little boy in tights and a spangled cap.

“In there,” he said, pointing to a little canvas door at the side of the squarish tent. “I don’t advise you to touch her, though. Spiteful, she is. Lashes out with her tail⁠—splashed old Mother Lee all over water she did⁠—an’ dangerous too: our Bill ’e got ’is bone set out in his wrist a-trying to hold on to her. An’ it’s thruppence extry to see her close.”

There are times, as we all know, when threepence extra is a baffling obstacle⁠—a cruel barrier to desire, but this was not, fortunately, such a moment. The children had plenty of money, because Mother had given them two half-crowns between them to spend as they liked.

“Even then,” said Bernard, in allusion to the threepence extra, “we shall have two bob left.”

So Mavis, who was treasurer, paid over the extra threepences to a girl with hair as fair and lank as hemp, and a face as brown and round as a tea cake, who sat on a kitchen chair by the Mermaid door. Then one by one they went in through the narrow opening, and at last there they were alone in the little canvas room with a tank in it that held⁠—well, there was a large label, evidently written in a hurry, for the letters were badly made and arranged quite crookedly, and this label declared:

Said To Be Fabulus, But Now True

Caught Here

Please Do Not Touch

Dangerous

The little Spangled Boy had followed them in and pointed to the last word.

“What I tell you?” he asked proudly.

The children looked at each other. Nothing could be done with this witness at hand. At least.⁠ ⁠…

“Perhaps if it’s going to be magic,” Mavis whispered to Francis, “outsiders wouldn’t notice. They don’t sometimes⁠—I believe. Suppose you just said a bit of ‘Sabrina’ to start the magic.”

“Wouldn’t be safe,” Francis returned in the same low tones. “Suppose he wasn’t an outsider, and did notice.”

So there they stood helpless. What the label was hung on was a large zinc tank⁠—the kind that they have at the tops of houses for the water supply⁠—you must have seen one yourself often when the pipes burst in frosty weather, and your father goes up into the roof of the house with a candle and pail, and the water drips through the ceilings and the plumber is sent for, and comes when it suits him. The tank was full of water and at the bottom of it could be seen a mass of something dark that looked as if it were partly browny-green fish and partly greeny-brown seaweed.

“Sabrina fair,” Francis suddenly whispered, “send him away.”

And immediately a voice from outside called “Rube⁠—Reuben⁠—drat the boy, where’s he got to?”⁠—and the little spangled intruder had to go.

“There, now,” said Mavis, “if that isn’t magic!” Perhaps it was, but still the dark fish-and-seaweed heap in the tank had not stirred. “Say it all through,” said Mavis.

“Yes, do,” said Bernard, “then we shall know for certain whether it’s a seal or not.”

So once again⁠—

“ ‘Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting,

Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave⁠—’ ”

He got no further. There was a heaving and stirring of the seaweed and fish tail, something gleamed white, through the brown something white parted the seaweed, two white hands parted it, and a face came to the surface of the rather dirty water and⁠—there was no doubt about it⁠—spoke.

“ ‘Translucent wave,’ indeed!” was what the face said. “I wonder you’re not ashamed to speak the invocation over a miserable cistern like this. What do you want?”

Brown hair and seaweed still veiled most of the face, but all the children, who, after their first start back had pressed close to the tank again, could see that the face looked exceedingly cross.

“We want,” said Francis in a voice that would tremble though he told himself again and again that he was not a baby and wasn’t going to behave like one⁠—“we want to help you.”

“Help me? You?” She raised herself a little more in the tank and looked contemptuously at them. “Why, don’t you know that I am mistress of all water magic? I can raise a storm that will sweep away this horrible place and my detestable captors and you with them, and carry me on the back of a great wave down to the depths of the sea.”

“Then why on earth don’t you?” Bernard asked.

“Well, I was thinking about it,” she said, a little awkwardly, “when you interrupted with your spells. Well, you’ve called and I’ve answered⁠—now tell me what I can do for you.”

“We’ve told you,” said Mavis gently enough, though she was frightfully disappointed that the Mermaid after having in the handsomest manner turned out to be a Mermaid, should be such a very short-tempered one. And when they had talked about her all day and paid the threepence each extra to see her close, and put on their best white dresses too. “We’ve told you⁠—we want to help you. Another Sabrina in the sea told us to. She didn’t tell us anything about you being a magic-mistress. She just said ‘they die in captivity.’ ”

“Well, thank you for coming,” said the Mermaid. “If she really said that it must be one of two things⁠—either the sun is in the House of Liber⁠—which is impossible at this time of the year⁠—or else the rope I was caught with must be made of llama’s hair, and that’s impossible in these latitudes. Do you know anything about the rope they caught me with?”

“No,” said Bernard and Kathleen. But the others said, “It was a lariat.”

“Ah,” said the Mermaid, “my worst fears are confirmed⁠—But who could have expected a lariat on these shores? But that must have been it. Now I know why, though I have been on the point of working the magic of the Great Storm at least five hundred times since my capture, some unseen influence has always held me back.”

“You mean,” said Bernard, “you feel that it wouldn’t work, so you didn’t try.”

A rattling, ripping sound outside, beginning softly, waxed louder and louder so as almost to drown their voices. It was the drum, and it announced the beginning of the circus. The Spangled Child put his head in and said, “Hurry up or you’ll miss my Infant Prodigious Act on the Horse with the Tambourines,” and took his head out again.

“Oh, dear,” said Mavis, “and we haven’t arranged a single thing about rescuing you.”

“No more you have,” said the Mermaid carelessly.

“Look here,” said Francis, “you do want to be rescued, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” replied the Mermaid impatiently, “now I know about the llama rope. But I can’t walk even if they’d let me, and you couldn’t carry me. Couldn’t you come at dead of night with a chariot⁠—I could lift myself into it with your aid⁠—then you could drive swiftly hence, and driving into the sea I could drop from the chariot and escape while you swam ashore.”

“I don’t believe we could⁠—any of it,” said Bernard, “let alone swimming ashore with horses and chariots. Why, Pharaoh himself couldn’t do that, you know.” And even Mavis and Francis added helplessly, “I don’t see how we’re to get a chariot,” and “do you think of some other way.”

“I shall await you,” said the lady in the tank with perfect calmness, “at dead of night.”

With that she twisted the seaweed closely around her head and shoulders and sank slowly to the bottom of the tank. And the children were left staring blankly at each other, while in the circus tent music sounded and the soft heavy pad-pad of hoofs on sawdust.

“What shall we do?” Francis broke the silence.

“Go and see the circus, of course,” said Bernard.

“Of course we can talk about the chariot afterward,” Mavis admitted.

“There’ll be lots of time to talk between now and dead of night,” said Kathleen. “Come on, Bear.”

And they went.

There is nothing like a circus for making you forget your anxieties. It is impossible to dwell on your troubles and difficulties when performing dogs are displaying their accomplishments, and wolves dancing their celebrated dance with the flags of all nations, and the engaging lady who jumps through the paper hoops and comes down miraculously on the flat back of the white horse, cannot but drive dull care away, especially from the minds of the young. So that for an hour and a half⁠—it really was a good circus, and I can’t think how it happened to be at Beachfield Fair at all⁠—a solid slab of breathless enjoyment was wedged in between the interview with the Mermaid and the difficult task of procuring for her the chariot she wanted. But when it was all over and they were part of a hot, tightly packed crowd pouring out of the dusty tent into the sunshine, their responsibilities came upon them with renewed force.

“Wasn’t the clown ripping?” said Bernard, as they got free of the crowd.

“I liked the riding-habit lady best, and the horse that went like that, best,” said Kathleen, trying with small pale hands and brown shod legs to give an example of a horse’s conduct during an exhibition of the haute école.

“Didn’t you think the elephant⁠—” Mavis was beginning, when Francis interrupted her.

“About that chariot,” he said, and after that they talked of nothing else. And whatever they said it always came to this in the end, that they hadn’t got a chariot, and couldn’t get a chariot, and that anyhow they didn’t suppose there was a chariot to be got, at any rate in Beachfield.

“It wouldn’t be any good, I suppose,” said Kathleen’s last and most helpful suggestion⁠—“be the slightest good saying ‘Sabrina fair’ to a pumpkin?”

“We haven’t got even a pumpkin,” Bernard reminded her, “let alone the rats and mice and lizards that Cinderella had. No, that’s no good. But I’ll tell you what.” He stopped short. They were near home now⁠—it was late afternoon, in the road where the talkative yellowhammer lived. “What about a wheelbarrow?”

“Not big enough,” said Francis.

“There’s an extra big one in the mill,” said Bernard. “Now, look here. I’m not any good at magic. But Uncle Tom said I was a born general. If I tell you exactly what to do, will you two do it, and let Cathay and me off going?”

“Going to sneak out of it?” Francis asked bitterly.

“It isn’t. It’s not my game at all, and I don’t want to play. And if I do, the whole thing will be muffed⁠—you know it will. I’m so unlucky. You’d never get out at dead of night without me dropping a boot on the stairs or sneezing⁠—you know you wouldn’t.”

Bernard took a sort of melancholy pride in being the kind of boy who always gets caught. If you are that sort of boy, perhaps that’s the best way to take it. And Francis could not deny that there was something in what he said. He went on: “Then Kathleen’s my special sister and I’m not going to have her dragged into a row.” (“I want to,” Kathleen put in ungratefully.) “So will you and Mavis do it on your own or not?”

After some discussion, in which Kathleen was tactfully dealt with, it was agreed that they would. Then Bernard unfolded his plan of campaign.

“Directly we get home,” he said, “we’ll begin larking about with that old wheelbarrow⁠—giving each other rides, and so on, and when it’s time to go in we’ll leave it at the far end of the field behind the old sheep hut near the gate. Then it’ll be handy for you at dead of night. You must take towels or something and tie around the wheel so that it doesn’t make a row. You can sleep with my toy alarm under your pillow and it won’t wake anyone but you. You get out through the dining room window and in the same way. I’ll lend you my new knife, with three blades and a corkscrew, if you’ll take care of it, to cut the canvas, and go by the back lane that comes out behind where the circus is, but if you took my advice you wouldn’t go at all. She’s not a nice Mermaid at all. I’d rather have had a seal, any day. Hullo, there’s Daddy and Mother. Come on.”

They came on.

The program sketched by Bernard was carried out without a hitch. Everything went well, only Francis and Mavis were both astonished to find themselves much more frightened than they had expected to be. Any really great adventure like the rescuing of a Mermaid does always look so very much more serious when you carry it out, at night, than it did when you were planning it in the daytime. Also, though they knew they were not doing anything wrong, they had an uncomfortable feeling that Mother and Daddy might not agree with them on that point. And of course they could not ask leave to go and rescue a Mermaid, with a chariot, at dead of night. It is not the sort of thing you can ask leave to do, somehow. And the more you explained your reasons the less grown-up people would think you fit to conduct such an expedition.

Francis lay down fully dressed, under his nightshirt. And Mavis under hers wore her short blue skirt and jersey. The alarm, true to its trust, went off into an earsplitting whizz and bang under the pillow of Francis, but no one else heard it. He crept cautiously into Mavis’s room and wakened her, and as they crept down in stockinged feet not a board creaked. The French window opened without noise, the wheelbarrow was where they had left it, and they had fortunately brought quite enough string to bind wads of towels and stockings to the tire of its wheel. Also they had not forgotten the knife.

The wheelbarrow was heavy and they rather shrank from imagining how much heavier it would be when the discontented Mermaid was curled up in it. However, they took it in turns, and got along all right by the back lane that comes out above the waste ground where Beachfield holds its fairs.

“I hope the night’s dead enough,” Mavis whispered as the circus came in sight, looking very white in the starlight, “it’s nearly two by now I should think.”

“Quite dead enough, if that’s all,” said Francis; “but suppose the gypsies are awake? They do sit up to study astronomy to tell fortunes with, don’t they? Suppose this is their astronomy night? I vote we leave the barrow here and go and reconnoiter.”

They did. Their sandshoes made no noise on the dewy grass, and treading very carefully, on tiptoe, they came to the tent. Francis nearly tumbled over a guy rope; he just saw it in time to avoid it.

“If I’d been Bernard I should have come a beastly noisy cropper over that,” he told himself. They crept around the tent till they came to the little square bulge that marked the place where the tank was and the seaweed and the Mermaid.

“They die in captivity, they die in captivity, they die in captivity,” Mavis kept repeating to herself, trying to keep up her courage by reminding herself of the desperately urgent nature of the adventure. “It’s a matter of life and death,” she told herself⁠—“life and death.”

And now they picked their way between the pegs and guy ropes and came quite close to the canvas. Doubts of the strength and silence of the knife possessed the trembling soul of Francis. Mavis’s heart was beating so thickly that, as she said afterward, she could hardly hear herself think. She scratched gently on the canvas, while Francis felt for the knife with the three blades and the corkscrew. An answering signal from the imprisoned Mermaid would, she felt, give her fresh confidence. There was no answering scratch. Instead, a dark line appeared to run up the canvas⁠—it was an opening made by the two hands of the Mermaid which held back the two halves of the tent side, cut neatly from top to bottom. Her white face peered out.

“Where is the chariot?” she asked in the softest of whispers, but not too soft to carry to the children the feeling that she was, if possible, crosser than ever.