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, and glanced at Aunt Enid. “I say—she’s asleep.” He beckoned the others, and they screwed themselves along to that end of the carriage farthest from the slumbering aunt. “Just listen to this,” he said. Then in hoarse undertones he read all about the Mermaid.
“I say,” said Bernard, “I do hope it’s a seal. I’ve never seen a seal.”
“I hope they do catch it,” said Kathleen. “Fancy seeing a real live Mermaid.”
“If it’s a real live Mermaid I jolly well hope they don’t catch her,” said Francis.
“So do I,” said Mavis. “I’m certain she would die in captivity.”
“But I’ll tell you what,” said Francis, “we’ll go and look for her, first thing tomorrow. I suppose,” he added thoughtfully, “Sabrina was a sort of Mermaid.”
“She hasn’t a tail, you know,” Kathleen reminded him.
“It isn’t the tail that makes the Mermaid,” Francis reminded her. “It’s being able to live underwater. If it was the tail, then mackerels would be Mermaids.”
“And, of course, they’re not. I see,” said Kathleen.
“I wish,” said Bernard, “that she’d given us bows and arrows instead of pails and spades, and then we could have gone seal-shooting—”
“Or Mermaid-shooting,” said Kathleen. “Yes, that would have been ripping.”
Before Francis and Mavis could say how shocked they were at the idea of shooting Mermaids, Aunt Enid woke up and took the newspaper away from them, because newspapers are not fit reading for children.
She was somehow the kind of person before whom you never talk about anything that you really care for, and it was impossible therefore to pursue either seals or Mermaids. It seemed best to read Eric and the rest of the books. It was uphill work.
But the last two remarks of Bernard and Kathleen had sunk into the minds of the two elder children. That was why, when they had reached Beachfield and found Mother and rejoiced over her, and when Aunt Enid had unexpectedly gone on by that same train to stay with her really relations at Bournemouth, they did not say any more to the little ones about Mermaids or seals, but just joined freely in the chorus of pleasure at Aunt Enid’s departure.
“I thought she was going to stay with us all the time,” said Kathleen. “Oh, Mummy, I am so glad she isn’t.”
“Why? Don’t you like Aunt Enid? Isn’t she kind?”
All four thought of the spades and pails and shrimping nets, and of Eric and Elsie and the other books—and all said:
“Yes.”
“Then what was it?” Mother asked. And they could not tell her. It is sometimes awfully difficult to tell things to your mother, however much you love her. The best Francis could do was:
“Well—you see we’re not used to her.”
And Kathleen said: “I don’t think perhaps she’s used to being an aunt. But she was kind.”
And Mother was wise and didn’t ask any more questions. Also she at once abandoned an idea one had had of asking Aunt Enid to come and stay at Beachfield for part of the holidays; and this was just as well, for if Aunt Enid had not passed out of the story exactly when she did, there would not have been any story to pass out of. And as she does now pass out of the story I will say that she thought she was very kind, and that she meant extremely well.
There was a little whispering between Francis and Mavis just after tea, and a little more just before bed, but it was tactfully done and the unwhispered-to younger ones never noticed it.
The lodgings were very nice—a little way out of the town—not a villa at all as everyone had feared. I suppose the landlady thought it grander to call it a villa, but it was really a house that had once been a mill house, and was all made of a soft-colored gray wood with a red-tiled roof, and at the back was the old mill, also gray and beautiful—not used now for what it was built for—but just as a store for fishing nets and wheelbarrows and old rabbit hutches and beehives and harnesses and odds and ends, and the sack of food for the landlady’s chickens. There was a great corn bin there too—that must have been in some big stable—and some broken chairs and an old wooden cradle that hadn’t had any babies in it since the landlady’s mother was a little girl.
On any ordinary holiday the mill would have had all the charm of a magic palace for the children, with its wonderful collection of pleasant and unusual things to play with, but just now all their thoughts were on Mermaids. And the two elder ones decided that they would go out alone the first thing in the morning and look for the Mermaid.
Mavis woke Francis up very early indeed, and they got up and dressed quite quietly, not washing, I am sorry to say, because water makes such a noise when you pour it out. And I am afraid their hair was not very thoroughly brushed either. There was not a soul stirring