"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.
"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn't it?"
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
I hadn't read any Saki stories in a long time before I happened upon them in this handy collection. I drew the picture because I couldn't resist.
♡
Fabulous work, Susan! I've really enjoyed the revisit, especially all together on one page. Have you thought of printing it yourself, and putting it together as a little gift book for a lucky child (grandchild, niece, nephew or friend. Your work is so exquisite.
ReplyI'm happy you enjoyed seeing it again in its new format, Marja-Leena. I looked into having it printed once but decided that a nicely done book would be too expensive.
A heartwarming piece of art.
ReplyThank you for sharing it, Susan.
I'm glad you liked it (again), Sean.
♡
37 days later:
Coming back again and again, and each time I like it a bit more. Just lovely.
Like last time, these stopped me in my tracks.
ReplyBathtub - The spigots are a wonder (they made me lean in for a closer look with a big grin on my face). And the light on the floor tiles reminds me how much I love the rare showers and baths I take in daylight. I am so glad this is in black and white so your usual magic with textures is the main event. I'm reminded again of Vallotton's "La Paresse" http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_387341/Felix-Edouard-Vallotton/La-Paresse
"A voice is softly calling / Unheard by grownup ears" - That is the place I am trying to return to in the walled garden. Where my art is trying to take me (unsuccessfully so far). I love this image - the dolphins in the fountain, the gentle interaction around the pram.
Sand castle - I can feel sand on baby skin.
The big cats at the zoo - I love looking for the atmospheric details, like the grass in the cracks in the pavers. They slow time.
The library - the Buddha and Yin/Yang... And the way that baby face peers out from the side of the big boldly patterned chair... brings back memories of when a chair like that could be a whole world to crawl over.
The kitchen - I love the view of the table from the vantage of baby eyes and the pattern on the dog! The ball that is a globe continues the theme of the meeting of large and small - the world sized importance of play.
"The journey is a long one / It's much to far to walk" - I'm reminded again of Vallotton, who also had prints with a sense of lunging movement like your dog. And the sun in the door!!! Baby with keys, baby climbing the grand stairs, the big clock... so much here about all that lies ahead of these tiny people.
The car!!! The lean into the steering wheel! Navigator in the booster seat! The baby shoes from the rear view mirror are insired. And no glimpse of the mirror - no looking back!
The gate is like a garden and a spider web, and where the babies emerged... I love the postures of the babies throughout these drawings; they show such a loving attention to the balance and proportions of baby figures, and the placement of little hands and feet. And in this drawing I love the dog's tail merging with the frame.
"We gather under starlit skies / (For children have no fear)" - Yes, I think fear is learned or taught. And I didn't miss the lovely echo of baby carrying bear, and bear carrying baby.
The merry-go-round - I love the way you open up shapes and perspectives to make patterns follow your whim. You create your own sense of close space - another way your images seem to slow time.
And the rest of the story and images... I stop breathing as the animals take flight, the dragons emerge, and the images go cosmic. I love this entire series, but the two with the dragon smiles might be my favorites. The way you use the different sizes of scale patterns, the division of the pages, the freedom of the figures, the patterns and silhouettes in the sky all have an even more unbridled sense of frolic than the rest. I think you managed to build the scale and wonder of this romp with each drawing - not easy to do for so many images in a row!
I marvel at the patience to ink the Milky Way, and I love the echo of dragon tail and dog tail.
The blowing curtains catch the fleeting nature of the whole thing...
Thank you for reposting these!
Steve, I can't tell you just how amazed and delighted I was made by reading your generous compliments about Baby Days. When I drew these pictures (size 3 Radidograph) I spent a lot of time in a very different space from my usual artistic haunts and, like poets and musicians sometimes say, I felt as though I was a conduit for something far bigger. Too much time has passed to ask myself if I was competent enough to take on such a project. At the time I'd never done pen and ink drawings previously so had no clue (nor preconceived notions either) so your comparing my work to Vallotton's is very kind. Also, it's too late for me to wonder if the whole thing has any value to anyone other than myself. During the more than 5 years Baby Days had it's own site fewer than 20 people left comments, but all of them were very favorable and I'll always be grateful for that. We live in harsh times spiritually, making it no wonder to me that although many more may have read it, Baby Days was just a little too sentimental for most tastes. It's more a story to inspire contemplation of a period that moves far too swiftly when we're parenting little ones in this modern age.
I'm very grateful to you for taking the time to write such an appreciative account of how you've responded to the individual pictures and the accompanying verse. No review anywhere could make me more pleased.
I came by for a bedtime story.... What great timing!! I'm hearing the text set to music....... Happy Easter..... Happy dreams.
ReplyOh, that would be very nice. I'm glad you came back to see it all together.
I hope you had a good holiday.
:-)