Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.
R. L. S.
JESSAMINE and I had been out sailing. We came back to find the house deserted, and after foraging in the pantry, we made ourselves at home in the long unceiled living-room, which is one of the pleasantest lounging-places in the world. A few pine-knots were smouldering in the fireplace, and, as I have reached an age when it is pleasant to watch the flames, I poked a little life into the embers and sat down to contemplate them from the easiest chair the camp afforded. Jessamine wearily cast herself upon the couch near by without taking off her coat.
Jessamine is five and does as she likes, and does it perversely, arbitrarily, and gracefully, in the way of maids of five. In the pantry she had found her way to marmalade with an ease and certainty that amazed me; and she had, with malice aforethought, made me particeps criminis by teaching me how to coax reluctant, tight-fitting olives from an impossible bottle with an oyster-fork.
Jessamine is difficult. I thought of it now with a pang, as her brown curls lay soft against a red cushion and she crunched a biscuit, heavily stuccoed with marmalade, with her little popcorn teeth. I have wooed her with bonbons; I have bribed her with pennies; but indifference and disdain are still my portion. To-day was my opportunity. The rest of the household had gone to explore the village bazaars, and we were left alone. It was not that she loved me more, but the new nurse less; and, as sailing had usually been denied her, she derived from our few hours in my catboat the joy of a clandestine adventure. We had never been so much together before. I wondered how long the spell of our sail would last. Probably, I reflected, until the wanderers came back from town to afford a new diversion; or until her nurse came to carry her away to tea. For the moment, however, I felt secure. The fire snapped; the clock ticked insistently; my face burned from its recent contact with a sharp west wind, which had brought white caps to the surface of the lake and a pleasant splash to the beach at our front door. Jessamine folded her arms, rested her head upon them, and regarded me lazily. She was slim and lean of limb, and the lines she made on the couch were long. I tried to remember whether I had ever seen her still before.
“You may read, if you like,” she said.
“Thank you; but I’d rather have you tell me things,” I answered.
I wished to be conciliatory. At any moment, I knew she might rise and vanish. My tricks of detention had proved futile a thousand times; I was always losing her. She was a master opportunist. She had, I calculated, a mood a minute, and the mood of inaction was not often one of them.
“There are many, many things I’d like to have you tell me, Mischief,” I said. “What do you think of when you’re all alone; what do you think of me?”