Babies in the Sun
Fat babies, white dogs running, nursemaids with the wind pulling at their snuff-coloured veils, and at least six sharp intervals of sun strong enough to paint three shadows on the grass. That was how Kensington Gardens looked the other day, that delicious annexe to a thousand nurseries, that lovely land of young things insulated from our common world by a row of spiked railings.
I went up the Broad Walk revelling in this untroubled side of life, joyfully appreciating other people's babies, patting other people's dogs, admiring a smart turnout that lacked only a crest on the dove-grey perambulator, noting with pleasure the tall, neat young Kensington mothers with their lamp-post figures in well-cut tweed. When the sun came through it was like a game of musical chairs. The nursemaids stopped perambulating. Wind-blown walkers came to a standstill. They sat down on green seats.
So did I.
Next to me was a maiden of about three, a little unopened rose-bud of a girl, whose crisp gold hair escaped from a woollen cap with a yellow woollen tuft on top like a tangerine. Her short legs, in grey woollen trousers, stuck out in space so that she, sitting on a grown-up's seat, was in exactly the same position she would have assumed had she been sitting on a floor! Her brother was perhaps five. He wore a peaked cap of corduroy, leggings, and a little fawn coat with an absurd belt at the back.
These two were holding hands, a difficult feat, I imagine, when hands are so small and woollen gloves so bulky and fluffy. They were discussing railway travel. He said that the carriage wheels say "lickety-lick, lickety-lick," which I thought was very true, but she, womanlike, contradicted him, saying that they go "tell-at-a-train, tell-at-a-train," which I thought also was very true. Then suddenly he said loudly three times, because his nurse was reading a novel:
"Nannie," he said, "I'm going to marry Madge!"
She looked shocked, put down the novel, and said:
"No, Master John, little boys don't marry their sisters, ever."
"I know," said Master John. "Not now, of course, but when I grow up and get big. Some day when I'm——"
Here he opened his arms to denote size and maturity.
"Yes; but then you'll marry some other boy's sister," said the nurse.
"I won't—not never!" cried John furiously. "I'll marry Madge! Other boys' sisters are silly asses. They play with dolls!"
The sun went in and they went away, nurse telling him that "nice boys" don't say "silly asses"—ever! I smiled. Little minds in fairy-land grappling for the first time with this incomprehensible world! Poor John, dear Madge!
Ten minutes in the Broad Walk make you think a lot about small children. How much character they show at an age when they seem hardly to exist as reasonable beings! See how some lag behind, how others are unhappy unless they are in front, exploring, climbing, meeting great dogs on which, at the last moment, they turn their backs in fear. Watch how some just endure a walk placidly, while others shine with the adventure of it, seeing every detail, wondering, questioning. Look how some collect things busily: sticks by the armful, stones by the pocketful! Restless, acquisitive little creatures. All instinct with motives planted in them before birth.
How amusing it is to watch it all. Such tiny, instinctive people!
* * *
The Round Pond flecked by wind. White gulls. Ducks with green velvet heads. Not one ship slanting across this ocean; not one. Only a boy prodding the water with a stick:
"Too cold to sail a ship!" I said.
"It isn't," he replied, scowling. "But mother thinks it is."
"And she's right!" I said, wishing to rebuke him.
"She isn't!" (Slap, slap on the water.)
"She is!"
"She isn't!"
I felt that this conversation had all the elements of eternity, so, after delivering a last word in defence of the mothers of Kensington who release the navies of the Round Pond at exactly the right temperature, I left this scowling die-hard admiral to his melancholy.
* * *
Then, on a path under bare trees, I saw a fat, round fairy in salmon pink. Just standing, she was. I sat down to look at her. She advanced slowly. Among the bare trees someone called, "Joan, Joan!" She reminded me of a faun I saw once on the Rock of the Loreli on the Rhine. It advanced in just this same doubtful, solemn manner; one movement on my part would have sent it with beating heart into the thicket. So she advanced. I smiled; she smiled. Then she touched my coat with one finger, laughed, and—ran unsteadily away over the path under bare trees. Flirt!
I left Wonderland, and caught an omnibus to Piccadilly in a remarkably good temper....