“We breathe again,” said Mavis.
“Not yet we don’t,” said Francis, “there’ll be some more fuss as soon as she comes back. I’d almost as soon not go to the sea as go with her.”
“But you’ve never seen the sea,” Mavis reminded him.
“I know,” said Francis, morosely, “but look at all this – ” he indicated the tangle of their possessions which littered seats and rack – “I do wish – ”
He stopped, for a head appeared in the open doorway – in a round hat very like Aunt Enid’s – but it was not Aunt Enid’s. The face under the hat was a much younger, kinder one.
“I’m afraid this carriage is reserved,” said the voice that belonged to the face.
“Yes,” said Kathleen, “but there’s lots of room if you like to come too.”
“I don’t know if the aunt we’re with would like it,” said the more cautious Mavis. “We should, of course,” she added to meet the kind smiling eyes that looked from under the hat that was like Aunt Enid’s.
The lady said: “I’m an aunt too – I’m going to meet my nephew at the junction. The train’s frightfully crowded… If I were to talk to your aunt … perhaps on the strength of our common aunthood. The train will start in a minute. I haven’t any luggage to be a bother – nothing but one paper.” – she had indeed a folded newspaper in her hands.
“Oh, do get in,” said Kathleen, dancing with anxiety, “I’m sure Aunt Enid won’t mind,” – Kathleen was always hopeful – “suppose the train were to start or anything!”
“Well, if you think I may,” said the lady, and tossed her paper into the corner in a lighthearted way which the children found charming. Her pleasant face was rising in the oblong of the carriage doorway, her foot was on the carriage step, when suddenly she retreated back and down. It was almost as though someone pulled her off the carriage step.
“Excuse me,” said a voice, “this carriage is reserved.” The pleasant face of the lady disappeared and the – well, the face of Aunt Enid took its place. The lady vanished. Aunt Enid trod on Kathleen’s foot, pushed against Bernard’s waistcoat, sat down, partly on Mavis and partly on Francis and said – “Of all the impertinence!” Then someone banged the door – the train shivered and trembled and pulled itself together in the way we all know so well – grunted, snorted, screamed, and was off. Aunt Enid stood up arranging things on the rack, so that the children could not even see if the nice lady had found a seat in the train.
“Well – I do think – ” Francis could not help saying.
“Oh – do you?” said Aunt Enid, “I should never have thought it of you.”
When she had arranged the things in the rack to her satisfaction she pointed out a few little faults that she had noticed in the children and settled down to read a book by Miss Marie Corelli. The children looked miserably at each other. They could not understand why Mother had placed them under the control of this most unpleasant mock aunt.
There was a reason for it, of course. If your parents, who are generally so kind and jolly, suddenly do a thing that you can’t understand and can hardly bear, you may be quite sure they have a good reason for it. The reason in this case was that Aunt Enid was the only person who offered to take charge of the children at a time when all the nice people who usually did it were having influenza. Also she was an old friend of Granny’s. Granny’s taste in friends must have been very odd, Francis decided, or else Aunt Enid must have changed a good deal since she was young. And there she sat reading her dull book. The children also had been provided with books —Eric, or Little by Little; Elsie, or Like a Little Candle; Brave Bessie and Ingenious Isabel had been dealt out as though they were cards for a game, before leaving home. They had been a great bother to carry, and they were impossible to read. Kathleen and Bernard presently preferred looking out of the windows, and the two elder ones tried to read the paper left by the lady, “looking over.”
Now, that is just where it was, and really what all that has been written before is about. If that lady hadn’t happened to look in at their door, and if she hadn’t happened to leave the paper they would never have seen it, because they weren’t the sort of children who read papers except under extreme provocation.
You will not find it easy to believe, and I myself can’t see why it should have happened, but the very first word they saw in that newspaper was Beachfield, and the second was On, and the third was Sea, and the fifth was Mermaid. The fourth which came between Sea and Mermaid was Alleged.
“I say,” said Mavis, “let’s look.”
“Don’t pull then, you can see all right,” said Francis, and this is what they read together:
BEACHFIELD-ON-SEA – ALLEGED MERMAID. AMAZING STORY.
“‘At this season of the year, which has come to be designated the silly season, the public press is deluged with puerile old-world stories of gigantic gooseberries and enormous sea serpents. So that it is quite in keeping with the weird traditions of this time of the year to find a story of some wonder of the deep, arising even at so well-known a watering place as Beachfield. Close to an excellent golf course, and surrounded by various beauty spots, with a thoroughly revised water supply, a newly painted pier and three rival Cinematograph Picture Palaces, Beachfield has long been known as a rising plage of exceptional attractions, the quaint charm of its…’”
“Hold on,” said Francis, “this isn’t about any old Mermaid.”
“Oh, that’ll be further on,” said Mavis. “I expect they have to put all that stuff in to be polite to Beachfield – let’s skip – ‘agreeable promenade, every modern convenience, while preserving its quaint…’ What does quaint mean, and why do they keep on saying it?”
“I don’t think it means anything,” said Francis, “it’s just a word they use, like weird and dainty. You always see it in a newspaper. Ah – got her. Here she is – ‘The excitement may be better imagined than described’ – no, that’s about the Gymkhana – here we are:
“‘Master Wilfred Wilson, the son of a well-known and respected resident, arrived home yesterday evening in tears. Inquiry elicited a statement that he had been paddling in the rock pools, which are to be found in such profusion under the West Cliff, when something gently pinched his foot. He feared that it might be a lobster, having read that these crustaceans sometimes attack the unwary intruder, and he screamed. So far his story, though unusual, contains nothing inherently impossible. But when he went on to state that a noise “like a lady speaking” told him not to cry, and that, on looking down, he perceived that what held him was a hand “coming from one of the rocks under water,” his statement was naturally received with some incredulity. It was not until a boating party returning from a pleasure trip westward stated that they had seen a curious sort of white seal with a dark tail darting through the clear water below their boat that Master Wilfred’s story obtained any measure of credence.’”
(“What’s credence?” said Mavis.
“Oh, never mind. It’s what you believe with, I think. Go on,” said Francis.)
“‘ – of credence. Mr. Wilson, who seems to have urged an early retirement to bed as a cure for telling stories and getting his feet wet, allowed his son to rise and conduct him to the scene of adventure. But Mr. Wilson, though he even went to the length of paddling in some of the pools, did not see or feel any hands nor hear any noise, ladylike or otherwise. No doubt the seal theory is the correct one. A white seal would be a valuable acquisition to the town, and would, no doubt, attract visitors. Several boats have gone out, some with nets and some with lines. Mr. Carrerras, a visitor from South America, has gone out with a lariat, which in these latitudes is, of course, quite a novelty.’”
“That’s all,” whispered Francis,