The Tree of Heaven Part 10

She slept in her mother's room, and so never could be put to bed till half-past seven, or till her mother was dressed to the last hook of her gown, the last hairpin, the last touch of powder (adhesive without bis.m.u.th), and the last shadow drawn fine about her eyelashes. When Vera beautiful in a beautiful gown, came trailing into the room where everybody waited for her, Veronica hid herself behind Uncle Anthony's big chair. When her father told her to come out of that and say good-night and be quick about it, she came slowly (she was not in the least afraid of Bartie), showing herself bit by bit, honey-coloured hair, eyebrows dark under her gold, very dark against her white; sorrowful, transparent, lucid eyes. A little girl with a straight white face. A little, slender girl in a straight white frock. She stood by Anthony's chair, spinning out the time, smiling at him with her childish wavering mouth, a smile that would not spread, that never went higher than the tip of her white nose, that left her lucid, transparent eyes still sorrowful.

She knew that Anthony would take her on his knee, and that she could sit there with her head tucked under his chin, smiling at him, prolonging her caresses, till Vera told him to put her down and let her go.

Bartie growled: "Did you hear your mother telling you to say Good-night?"

"Yes. But I must kiss Uncle Anthony first. Properly. Once on his mouth.

Once--on his nose. And once--on--his--eyes. And--once--on--his dear little--ears."

After that, Veronica went slowly from chair to chair, lingering at each, sitting first on Frances's lap, then on Vera's, spinning out her caresses, that spun out the time and stretched it farther and farther between her and the unearthly hour ahead of her.

But at her father's chair she did not linger for a single instant. She slipped her hand into his hand that dropped it as if it had hurt him; she touched his forehead with her small mouth, pushed out, absurdly, to keep her face as far as possible from his. For, though she was not afraid of Bartie, he was not nice either to sit on or to kiss.

Half-way across the room she lingered.

"I haven't sung 'London Bridge is broken down.' Don't you want me to sing it?"

"No, darling. We want you to go to bed."

"I'm going, Mummy."

And at the door she turned and looked at them with her sorrowful, lucid, transparent eyes.

Then she went, leaving the door open behind her. She left it open on purpose, so that she might hear their voices, and look down into the room on her way upstairs. Besides, she always hoped that somebody would call her back again.

She lingered at the foot of the stairs till Bartie got up and shut the door on her. She lingered at the turn of the stairs and on the landing.

But n.o.body ever called her back again.

And n.o.body but Nicky knew what she was afraid of.

Veronica was sitting up in the cot that used to be Nicky's when he was little. Nicky, rather cold in his pyjamas, sat on the edge of it beside her. A big, yellow, tremendous moon hung in the sky outside the window, behind a branch of the tree of Heaven, and looked at them.

Veronica crouched sideways on her pillow in a corner of the cot, her legs doubled up tight under her tiny body, her shoulders hunched together, and her thin arms hanging before her straight to her lap. Her honey coloured hair was parted and gathered into two funny plaits, that stuck out behind her ear. Her head was tilted slightly backwards to rest against the rail of the cot. She looked at Nicky and her look reminded him of something, he couldn't remember what.

"Were you ever afraid, Nicky?" she said.

Nicky searched his memory for some image encircled by an atmosphere of terror, and found there a white hound with red smears on his breast and a muzzle like two saws.

"Yes," he said, "I was once."

A lamb--a white lamb--was what Veronica looked like. And Jerry bad looked at him like that when he found him sitting on the mustard and cress the day Boris killed him.

"Afraid--what of?"

"I don't know that it was 'of' exactly."

"Would you be afraid of a ghost, now, if you saw one?"

"I expect I jolly well should, if I _really_ saw one."

"Being afraid of ghosts doesn't count, does it?"

"No, of course it doesn't. You aren't afraid as long as I'm here, are you?"

"No."

"I shall stay, then, till you go to sleep."

Night after night he heard her calling to him, "Nicky, I'm frightened."

n.o.body but Veronica and Nicky were ever in bed on that floor before midnight. Night after night he got up and came to her and stayed beside her till she went to sleep.

Once he said, "If it was Michael he could tell you stories."

"I don't _want_ Michael. I want you."

In the day-time she went about looking for him. "Where's Nicky?" she said. "I want him."

"Nicky's in the schoolroom. You can't have him."

"But--I _want_ him."

"Can't be helped. You must do without him."

"Will he be very long?"

"Yes, ever so long. Run away like a good little girl and play with Don-Don."

She knew that they told her to play with Don-Don, because she was a little girl. If only she could grow big quick and be the same age as Nicky.

Instead of running away and playing with Don-Don, Ronny went away by herself into the apple-tree house, to wait for Nicky.

The apple-tree house stood on the gra.s.s-plot at the far end of the kitchen garden. The apple-tree had had no apples on it for years. It was so old that it leaned over at a slant; it stretched out two great boughs like twisted arms, and was propped up by a wooden post under each armpit. The breast of its trunk rested on a cross-beam. The posts and the cross-beam were the doorway of the house, and the branches were its roof and walls. Anthony had given it to Veronica to live in, and Veronica had given it to Nicky. It was Nicky's and Ronny's house. The others were only visitors who were not expected to stay. There was room enough for them both to stand up inside the doorway, to sit down in the middle, and to lie flat at the far end.

"What more," said Nicky, "do you want?"

He thought that everybody would be sure to laugh at him when he played with Bonny in the apple-tree house.

"I don't care a ram if they do," he said. But n.o.body ever did, not even Mr. Parsons.

Only Frances, when she pa.s.sed by that way and saw Nicky and Bonny sitting cramped and close under their roof-tree, smiled unwillingly. But her smile had in it no sort of mockery at all. Nicky wondered why.

"Is it," said Dorothy one morning, "that Ronny doesn't look as if she was Uncle Bartie's daughter, or that Uncle Bartie looks as if he wasn't Ronny's father?"

However suddenly and wantonly an idea struck Dorothy, she brought it out as if it had been the result of long and mature consideration.

"Or is it," said Vera, "that I don't look as if I were Ronny's mother?"

Her eyes had opened all their length to take in Dorothy.