“But none of you can have me,” the girl called, flopping dreamily every which-way, her hand on her head as if she were a suffering damsel. “I’m Tiger Lily, Princess of the Indian Chiefs.”
“You can’t be the Princess of an Indian Chief,” Michael cried. “They don’t have Princesses.”
“Well I’m an Indian Princess,” the girl argued. “And my Indian Prince is going to come and get rid of all you silly pirates.”
“They are not,” both boys cried in unison.
“They can’t do that, that’s not allowed, Indians can’t even cross the sea. There are no Indians in England,” John countered.
“Who said we were in England?” the girl asked and both her brothers began chasing her. She ran in her delicate white shoes, and Netty closed her eyes, she couldn’t look, she just couldn’t look at them.
“Children,” she called once they’d run ahead of her. “Children behave!” she cried out. And it wasn’t fair. Her friend Katy was a nurse to four children over in Little Britain and they were perfect dears, Katy said, they barely gave her a lick of trouble and here she was with these three, and one of them was old enough to be a grown woman, still running around pretending to be an Indian Princess. And didn’t they have princesses in England, weren’t English Princesses good enough for that one? “Children, come back, be good now, d’you hear? Act your age,” Netty cried as she stumbled after them.
She could see them running; they didn’t even bother to stay on the path. The boys with their arms out, “swords” displayed. John had the correct posture at least, one hand behind his back, forward knee pointed out. That one at least knew how to pose, but the other young lad, he was flailing all over the place.
“On guard,” John called, eyes tense as he rushed toward his brother.
“And I’m Tiger Lily,” Winifred said, standing between them. “You have to rescue me, Captain Redhanded Jack, rescue me from that one,” she declared.
“What makes you think we’re going to do that?” John asked, stopping the game to glare at her. “Go on and shoo, girl,” he called, sticking his tongue out at her as Michael moved in. The boys ran sideways down the path between the trees like little chipmunks scuffling over a fallen nut.“Children, children, calm down!” Netty called, though she had no chance of catching up with them, not going so slowly, her skirts nearly tripping her.
Winifred watched Netty try to reach them. She had never understood the way women dressed as if they needed to remain still all day. What was the fun in that?
She watched her brothers run down the path. Two men were coming, decked out in black; they seemed as if they were dressed for one of those parties Papa attended sometimes, when he took Mother and she wore her nicest dress, the pink one that went with her pearl earrings. One of the men was wearing a tall top hat that shone in the sun, and he carried a cane, swinging it from side to side as if it had no other purpose. The other man, when he got closer, looked younger; he did not wear a hat, but had on the same nice black suit, as if the two of them were in some kind of uniform. Winifred, as she watched them, could just hear their conversation, “And then my good man, we must go to the club, and after that maybe we’ll look again at those numbers. Stocks and bonds and cricket and tea and biscuits and then the office, yes, of course, the office, we mustn’t forget the office.”
Winifred ran up to her brothers while they were playing, just as Michael crashed into the man with the cane. The older gentleman stumbled for a moment, arm shooting into the air as he nearly tumbled, and he would have if his younger companion hadn’t grasped his arm and helped him keep his balance. Michael tumbled at the man’s feet, but neither of them bothered to help him up.
“Look out, little brats,” the man with the top hat cried, and John rushed to Michael, helping him up. “Hasn’t anyone taught you manners?” the man seethed and John looked at the ground. Winifred, witnessing the scene, ran to her brother’s aide.
“Don’t you yell at my brother,” she cried at them, looking the offending man right in the eye. He had a completely shaven face and his big, blackish pupils were round like a cow’s. “You have no right to scold children.”
“Winifred!” Netty called and the girl turned her head. “Winifred, stop that,” the nurse cried, having just caught up to them. Her face was bright red and sweating, her hair damp as she breathed deep and heavily. “I’m very sorry gentleman,” Netty went on, embarrassed.
“As you should be,” the man with the top hat declared, straightening himself as if he were doing a little dance.
“You should not be,” Winifred interjected.
“Winifred, quiet,” Netty hissed. “I’m truly sorry, gentlemen, the children are in a state today.”
“Well perhaps you should make sure that the children are not in a state before you take them out in public. That’s your job, isn’t it?” the man asked, turning around and not bothering with the scene anymore. They walked away, in the opposite direction, and though John and Michael hung their heads and walked slowly toward the bridge in the middle of the park, Winifred stuck her tongue out at their backs.
“Why I never. . . ,” Winifred started and Netty gave her own “humph.”
“You children need to learn to behave, do you want people to think your parents don’t take good care of you? Do you want to get me fired, the way you go carrying on like that, it’s as if. . .” Netty shook her head, but it was too late, the incident was forgotten, the children had learned nothing and all three of them were running toward the stone bridge.
“On guard,” John called, sword arm out as he and Michael fought each other. Michael, who had discovered a long stick sitting near the edge of the path, held that out, whacking John’s arm with it as the older brother cried “ah-ouch” and ran after him.
Winifred, meanwhile, stood at the very edge of the bridge, looking down from it and into the water. It was clear, as clear as could be and she could see the sun shining off of it, shimmering in a twinkling light like little fairies dancing about a bed of rocks and long grasses. “Look down there,” Winifred cried as her brothers leaned over the edge. They all gazed down as Netty, still holding up her skirts, tried to catch up to them.
“On guard,” John called and Michael, still holding that stick, whacked his brother, this time over the head.
“I’ll get you, Captain, no Pirate makes a fool out of me,” John cried as Winifred still stood looking over the edge of the bridge.
“And I’m Princess Tiger Lily, soon to be Queen of all the Indians, and look, look,” she said, pointing down, “there’s my kingdom.”
“On guard,” both boys cried to each other at once, just as Netty called out, “Be careful you three. Get off that bridge before someone gets hurt!”
Then John pushed Michael, who bumped into Winifred, whose feet were just at the very edge of the slippery stone bridge. She fell face down, tumbling off the bridge. There wasn’t much of a splash—not when she fell in, nor when she hit the stream. London had gone without rain for a week and so there wasn’t much water, just a slight trickle over the rocks. Netty came running, nearly tripping over the skirts that she’d forgotten to pick up. “What’s this! What’s going on?” she cried. “Winifred, oh, Winifred !” Netty screamed, stopping at the edge of the stream.
All three of them looked down. Winifred was there, face in the water. Blood trickled down the side of her head and she wasn’t moving, she didn’t get up, not even when Netty screamed, “Winifred, oh Winifred, wake up, wake up Winifred!” The little girl in her blue cloth dress simply lay there, face in the water. John climbed from the bridge, moving to wade into the stream to retrieve his sister, but before he could, and he wasn’t sure just what he would have done once he’d gotten her, a man appeared as if from nowhere.
“I’m a doctor,”