The Little Girls by Elizabeth Bowen Page A

you?”
    “Rink?” Clare examined the idiot from top to toe. “No.”
    “I would like to go. I don’t get on very fast, when I never do.”
    “You like falling down, attracting attention.”
    “No, I don’t. It hurts. And I don’t knock other people down. You bang round knocking people down. They won’t let you back on that rink, if you barge about.”
    “Who says?” Clare wanted to know, jibingly.
    Diana hurriedly put on airs again. “Oo, it’s hot. Is this the same as India?”
    “Ho, yes, like anything!”
    “Sheikie and I know what you’re thinking about. Where we are, we see you scratching your head.”
    “Then go back to wherever you think you are.—I would,” Clare said ominously, “if I were you.”
    That fascinated Diana. She could not but advance further up the mound. Re-establishing balance, she stood on the other leg. “Why, if you were me, would you go away?
    If you were me, you’d know what you’re thinking about— is that why?”
    “Oh—do—just go—AWAY.”
    “Oh—all—right—then—I—WILL. Anyway, you never answer anything I ask, so I think I’d rather. You never answer anything I say.”
    “You bleat. How can anyone answer? You just bleat.”
    “ I, ” said the other, “don’t go and ruin beautiful poems.”
    Clare banged shut her dark, rather prominent and now furious eyes. “Baa-lamb!” she shouted.
    “ Touche ?” At once, Diana broke out into a shrill, happy, attacking chant. “ Ru -ining that beauti- ful po- em . Ru -ining that beautiful po- em . Ru -ining that beauti- ful po- em . Roo-ining that—”
    Clare snatched at the leg and expertly jerked it away from under. Down came Diana, without even a shriek. Not doubting she now was dead and in Heaven, she stayed as and where she had fallen, placidly wide-eyed. Clare, for her part, got up. She aimed a kick not at but over the bright-blue upside-down tangle, tunic and bloomers, then walked off. Diana arose, still looking surprised.
    From the cool dark inside an open window, Mademoiselle, Miss Brace (the geography mistress), and Matron, holding their coffee cups, looked on. They had seen much the same thing happen before. The victim was plump, and the lawn though hard-baked not as hard as the asphalt from which the same child had rebounded the other day. Nevertheless they melted back from the window: Matron, whose afternoon peace could be most imperilled, the first to do so. Better have witnessed nothing.
    Sheila, from under the escallonia, enjoyed the spectacle and took note of its audience. Turning, she selected a leaf from the hedge behind her, then set about splitting that. But the glossed thick leaf with its saw-edges proved to be more of a job than a blade of grass—green got into her thumbnails, and pretty soon.

Two

    The Feverel Cottage drawing-room was—as Mrs. Piggott, asking for its exemption from any but guessing or the quieter card games, herself said—rather full of china. This was reputed to be or have been priceless. Precious it must be—why else should it have been mended with such care? Delicate metal stitchery underran dishes and saucers and held lids together; tiny alloy claws enabled handles to keep their grip on cups; cemented cracks formed networks cradling fine bowls, and where hatted and curled heads of shepherdesses or braceleted forearms of court ladies had been fitted back again on to throats or elbows, healed wounds were to be pointed out. And so on… . These ingenuities had for the children more merit than had the pieces themselves. Still “perfect” pieces seemed deficient— of those, however, the Piggott collection contained few.
    Having no special cabinet, the china overflowed from the chimneypiece on to two and a half tables and a three-tiered whatnot, and, not content with those, rambled along the top of a low bookcase, whose doors dared not be opened lest the china be jarred. The piano only could count on being immune. The selfish china was borne with by the children,