Little Dinners With the Sphinx, and Other Prose Fancies

by Richard Le Gallienne

I pretend not to see, I bow my head more sternly over my task in profound absorption; but Eva is not to be taken in by such cheap devices. She knows that she has only to stand long enough at the window—cleverly making no sign, not tapping or calling, but just silently there—for me to give in, and, throwing down my pen, catch her in my arms and carry her up to the gorse-lit moorland that spreads its boundless horizon at the top of our little wood.

The sun has been calling me all day, and the leaves have been whispering invitations upon the pane; but I have found it comparatively easy to resist them. The eternal temptation of the birds calling and calling me away I have steeled my heart to resist also. But Eva! No, I cannot resist her. So, after a sham fight of a few moments, she and I are on our way up the woods as fast as we can, for fear nurse or mother may catch sight of us before we really escape.

But for one particular day, of which at the moment I am thinking, I am afraid I cannot lay the blame on her. No, it was all my fault. I believe that that day she had meant to be a really good girl. I must take the blame of luring her from her arduous duties with her dolls. And yet I cannot blame myself very sincerely; for the forenoon had been so full of sunshine and wafting perfume that I could not have regarded myself as a human being had I stayed at my desk, merely writing, while the sun was shining and the birds singing and the wild-rose opening its dewy heart to the sky.

Deliberately I had decided that I would not work, and strolled up through the green, sun-ascending perfumes to the gorse and heather at the top of the pine wood. As I emerged into the broad, brooding sunshine, a swift rustle stirred in the underbrush, and a zigzag of silver flashed away from my feet, threshing its way, with sinuous, sinister beauty, to shelter in an old bank hard by. I had disturbed an adder taking his noonday sun bath.

Snakes are hardly more common in England than they are said to be in the island of Saint Patrick. When occasionally surprised, they startle one with something like the thrill of an apparition, something of the fear and fascination of the supernatural. They seem to belong to the beautiful wicked side of nature, that at once repels and ensnares. Though I had lived much in the country, I had not previously seen three snakes in my life; so this fleeing, flashing adder was quite an event in my morning’s walk, and my first thought was: If only Eva were here to see it too!

Presently the adder himself gave me my opportunity, by gliding into a hole in the bank, from which there was no outlet except by the way he had entered. I could see him sitting there coiled in the darkness, with his vicious head erect, ready, tiny worm, after all, as he was, to fight the whole big world. He sat there and watched me, unmoving; and then, noticing a big stone that lay near, I closed with it the door of his little cave, and made his imprisonment safe with earth. Then I went down the wood again to bring Eva. I caught sight of her through the garden hedge, sitting on the grass playing with alphabetical bricks. Nurse sat a short way off sewing.

Nurse is such an old friend of ours and so clothed with vice-maternal authority that I am almost as much afraid of her in regard to Eva’s and my truancies as I am of Eva’s mother. Men rightly enough, by natural law, are allowed little to say in the rearing of their own babies, and, however much the master of the house you may deem yourself, your authority stops with the good woman who guards your child. There is something sacred about a nurse—a mother nurse, I mean; not a nursemaid—which it would be profanity, even impertinence, for a mere father to disregard. When the mother is not there, the nurse is the mother, and her word is law.

Realising this, I could not dare openly to cross the lawn and take Eva away with me, as though I had every right to do so. Had I dared to do that, I should have been speedily humiliated by that mysterious authority which is said to rock the cradle and to rule the world. In other words, nurse and I would have had a spirited fight, in which I would have been speedily worsted.

Therefore, I lay in ambush a while behind the hedge of flowering laurel, wondering how to catch Eva’s attention. Presently I found a simple way. Within reach of my hand grew a red rose bush, weighted with fat, heavy roses. One of these I plucked, and threw it with a dexterity on which I prided myself right into Eva’s lap. If there is one thing I love about her, it is the calm way she takes surprises. She looked silently at the rose a moment, then with her strong, quiet eyes gazed around to see where it could have come from. As she did that, I gently shook the rose-bush. She watched it shaking a moment, and then caught sight of me. Even then she kept her presence of mind; but an indefinable twinkle in her eyes, momentarily illuminating her little imperturbable baby face, telegraphed to me that she had understood.

Fortunately for us, nurse was not only deep in her sewing, but deep in some old memories, so that she did not miss Eva till we were both safe together on the woodland side of the garden hedge. Once safe there, we made haste to cover as fast as possible, and, when we had reached one of our secret hiding places in a little hollow of fern surrounded by birches, I set Eva down and told her to wait there and play with the sunbeams, while I ran back down the hill for something which, it had just occurred to me, might make us a little more fun in our truancy. This was nothing more wonderful than a wide-mouthed glass jar, once poignant with pickles, which surreptitiously I procured from the cook with fear and trembling, and the purpose of which will soon appear. Returning up the wood, I found Eva contemplating the red rose I had thrown to her with a quite philosophical absorption.