CHAPTER TWO
The Captive

THE delicate pinkish bloom of newness was on the wooden spades, the slick smoothness of the painted pails showed neither scratch nor dent on their green and scarlet surface – the shrimping nets were full and fluffy as, once they and sand and water had met, they never could be again. The pails and spades and nets formed the topmost layer of a pile of luggage – you know the sort of thing, with the big boxes at the bottom; and the carryall bulging with its wraps and mackers; the old portmanteau that shows its striped lining through the crack and is so useful for putting boots in; and the sponge bag, and all the little things that get left out. You can almost always squeeze a ball or a paint box or a box of chalks or any of those things – which grown-ups say you won’t really want till you come back – into that old portmanteau – and then when it’s being unpacked at the journey’s end the most that can happen will be that someone will say, “I thought I told you not to bring that,” and if you don’t answer back, that will be all. But most likely in the agitation of unpacking and settling in, your tennis ball, or pencil box, or whatever it is, will pass unnoticed. Of course, you can’t shove an aquarium into the old portmanteau – nor a pair of rabbits, nor a hedgehog – but anything in reason you can.

The luggage that goes in the van is not much trouble – of course, it has to be packed and to be strapped, and labeled and looked after at the junction, but apart from that the big luggage behaves itself, keeps itself to itself, and like your elder brothers at college never occasions its friends a moment’s anxiety. It is the younger fry of the luggage family, the things you have with you in the carriage that are troublesome – the bundle of umbrellas and walking sticks, the golf clubs, the rugs, the greatcoats, the basket of things to eat, the books you are going to read in the train and as often as not you never look at them, the newspapers that the grown-ups are tired of and yet don’t want to throw away, their little bags or dispatch cases and suitcases and card cases, and scarfs and gloves —

The children were traveling under the care of Aunt Enid, who always had far more of these tiresome odds and ends than Mother had – and it was at the last moment, when the cab was almost to be expected to be there, that Aunt Enid rushed out to the corner shop and returned with four new spades, four new pails, and four new shrimping nets, and presented them to the children just in time for them to be added to the heap of odds and ends with which the cab was filled up.

“I hope it’s not ungrateful,” said Mavis at the station as they stood waiting by the luggage mound while Aunt Enid went to take the tickets – “but why couldn’t she have bought them at Beachfield?”

“Makes us look such babies,” said Francis, who would not be above using a wooden spade at the proper time and place but did not care to be branded in the face of all Waterloo Junction as one of those kids off to the seaside with little spades and pails.

Kathleen and Bernard were, however, young enough to derive a certain pleasure from stroking the smooth, curved surface of the spades till Aunt Enid came fussing back with the tickets and told them to put their gloves on for goodness’ sake and try not to look like street children.

I am sorry that the first thing you should hear about the children should be that they did not care about their Aunt Enid, but this was unfortunately the case. And if you think this was not nice of them I can only remind you that you do not know their Aunt Enid.

There was a short, sharp struggle with the porter, a flustered passage along the platform and the children were safe in the carriage marked “Reserved” – thrown into it, as it were, with all that small fry of luggage which I have just described. Then Aunt Enid fussed off again to exchange a few last home truths with the porter, and the children were left.

“We breathe again,” said Mavis.

“Not yet we don’t,” said Francis, “there’ll be some more fuss as soon as she comes back. I’d almost as soon not go to the sea as go with her.”

“But you’ve never seen the sea,” Mavis reminded him.

“I know,” said Francis, morosely, “but look at all this – ” he indicated the tangle of their possessions which littered seats and rack – “I do wish – ”

He stopped, for a head appeared in the open doorway – in a round hat very like Aunt Enid’s – but it was not Aunt Enid’s. The face under the hat was a much younger, kinder one.

“I’m afraid this carriage is reserved,” said the voice that belonged to the face.

“Yes,” said Kathleen, “but there’s lots of room if you like to come too.”

“I don’t know if the aunt we’re with would like it,” said the more cautious Mavis. “We should, of course,” she added to meet the kind smiling eyes that looked from under the hat that was like Aunt Enid’s.

The lady said: “I’m an aunt too – I’m going to meet my nephew at the junction. The train’s frightfully crowded… If I were to talk to your aunt … perhaps on the strength of our common aunthood. The train will start in a minute. I haven’t any luggage to be a bother – nothing but one paper.” – she had indeed a folded newspaper in her hands.

“Oh, do get in,” said Kathleen, dancing with anxiety, “I’m sure Aunt Enid won’t mind,” – Kathleen was always hopeful – “suppose the train were to start or anything!”

“Well, if you think I may,” said the lady, and tossed her paper into the corner in a lighthearted way which the children found charming. Her pleasant face was rising in the oblong of the carriage doorway, her foot was on the carriage step, when suddenly she retreated back and down. It was almost as though someone pulled her off the carriage step.

“Excuse me,” said a voice, “this carriage is reserved.” The pleasant face of the lady disappeared and the – well, the face of Aunt Enid took its place. The lady vanished. Aunt Enid trod on Kathleen’s foot, pushed against Bernard’s waistcoat, sat down, partly on Mavis and partly on Francis and said – “Of all the impertinence!” Then someone banged the door – the train shivered and trembled and pulled itself together in the way we all know so well – grunted, snorted, screamed, and was off. Aunt Enid stood up arranging things on the rack, so that the children could not even see if the nice lady had found a seat in the train.

“Well – I do think – ” Francis could not help saying.

“Oh – do you?” said Aunt Enid, “I should never have thought it of you.”

When she had arranged the things in the rack to her satisfaction she pointed out a few little faults that she had noticed in the children and settled down to read a book by Miss Marie Corelli. The children looked miserably at each other. They could not understand why Mother had placed them under the control of this most unpleasant mock aunt.

There was a reason for it, of course. If your parents, who are generally so kind and jolly, suddenly do a thing that you can’t understand and can hardly bear, you may be quite sure they have a good reason for it. The reason in this case was that Aunt Enid was the only person who offered to take charge of the children at a time when all the nice people who usually did it were having influenza. Also she was an old friend of Granny’s. Granny’s taste in friends must have been very odd, Francis decided, or else Aunt Enid must have changed a good deal since she was young. And there she sat reading her dull book. The children also had been provided with books —Eric, or Little by Little; Elsie, or Like a Little Candle; Brave Bessie and Ingenious Isabel had been dealt out as though they were cards for a game, before leaving home. They had been a great bother to carry, and they were impossible to read. Kathleen and Bernard presently preferred looking out of the windows, and the two elder ones tried to read the paper left by the lady, “looking over.”

Now, that is just where it was, and really what all that has been written before is about. If that lady hadn’t happened to look in at their door, and if she hadn’t happened to leave the paper they would never have seen it, because they weren’t the sort of children who read papers except under extreme provocation.

You will not find it easy to believe, and I myself can’t see why it should have happened, but the very first word they saw in that newspaper was Beachfield, and the second was On, and the third was Sea, and the fifth was Mermaid. The fourth which came between Sea and Mermaid was Alleged.

“I say,” said Mavis, “let’s look.”

“Don’t pull then, you can see all right,” said Francis, and this is what they read together:

BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA – ALLEGED MERMAID. AMAZING STORY.

“‘At this season of the year, which has come to be designated the silly season, the public press is deluged with puerile old-world stories of gigantic gooseberries and enormous sea serpents. So that it is quite in keeping with the weird traditions of this time of the year to find a story of some wonder of the deep, arising even at so well-known a watering place as Beachfield. Close to an excellent golf course, and surrounded by various beauty spots, with a thoroughly revised water supply, a newly painted pier and three rival Cinematograph Picture Palaces, Beachfield has long been known as a rising plage of exceptional attractions, the quaint charm of its…’”

“Hold on,” said Francis, “this isn’t about any old Mermaid.”

“Oh, that’ll be further on,” said Mavis. “I expect they have to put all that stuff in to be polite to Beachfield – let’s skip – ‘agreeable promenade, every modern convenience, while preserving its quaint…’ What does quaint mean, and why do they keep on saying it?”

“I don’t think it means anything,” said Francis, “it’s just a word they use, like weird and dainty. You always see it in a newspaper. Ah – got her. Here she is – ‘The excitement may be better imagined than described’ – no, that’s about the Gymkhana – here we are:

“‘Master Wilfred Wilson, the son of a well-known and respected resident, arrived home yesterday evening in tears. Inquiry elicited a statement that he had been paddling in the rock pools, which are to be found in such profusion under the West Cliff, when something gently pinched his foot. He feared that it might be a lobster, having read that these crustaceans sometimes attack the unwary intruder, and he screamed. So far his story, though unusual, contains nothing inherently impossible. But when he went on to state that a noise “like a lady speaking” told him not to cry, and that, on looking down, he perceived that what held him was a hand “coming from one of the rocks under water,” his statement was naturally received with some incredulity. It was not until a boating party returning from a pleasure trip westward stated that they had seen a curious sort of white seal with a dark tail darting through the clear water below their boat that Master Wilfred’s story obtained any measure of credence.’”

(“What’s credence?” said Mavis.

“Oh, never mind. It’s what you believe with, I think. Go on,” said Francis.)

“‘ – of credence. Mr. Wilson, who seems to have urged an early retirement to bed as a cure for telling stories and getting his feet wet, allowed his son to rise and conduct him to the scene of adventure. But Mr. Wilson, though he even went to the length of paddling in some of the pools, did not see or feel any hands nor hear any noise, ladylike or otherwise. No doubt the seal theory is the correct one. A white seal would be a valuable acquisition to the town, and would, no doubt, attract visitors. Several boats have gone out, some with nets and some with lines. Mr. Carrerras, a visitor from South America, has gone out with a lariat, which in these latitudes is, of course, quite a novelty.’”

“That’s all,” whispered Francis, and glanced at Aunt Enid. “I say – she’s asleep.” He beckoned the others, and they screwed themselves along to that end of the carriage farthest from the slumbering aunt. “Just listen to this,” he said. Then in hoarse undertones he read all about the Mermaid.

“I say,” said Bernard, “I do hope it’s a seal. I’ve never seen a seal.”

“I hope they do catch it,” said Kathleen. “Fancy seeing a real live Mermaid.”

“If it’s a real live Mermaid I jolly well hope they don’t catch her,” said Francis.

“So do I,” said Mavis. “I’m certain she would die in captivity.”

“But I’ll tell you what,” said Francis, “we’ll go and look for her, first thing tomorrow. I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “Sabrina was a sort of Mermaid.”

“She hasn’t a tail, you know,” Kathleen reminded him.

“It isn’t the tail that makes the Mermaid,” Francis reminded her. “It’s being able to live underwater. If it was the tail, then mackerels would be Mermaids.”

“And, of course, they’re not. I see,” said Kathleen.

“I wish,” said Bernard, “that she’d given us bows and arrows instead of pails and spades, and then we could have gone seal-shooting – ”

“Or Mermaid-shooting,” said Kathleen. “Yes, that would have been ripping.”

Before Francis and Mavis could say how shocked they were at the idea of shooting Mermaids, Aunt Enid woke up and took the newspaper away from them, because newspapers are not fit reading for children.