The Wind on the Moon (19 page)

‘Why do you not fetch him out of prison?' asked the Puma. ‘You helped us to escape from the zoo, which was a hard thing to do, and if you think well and use all your wits, I daresay you will find some means by which he may escape from prison.'

‘I don't think he would come,' said Dinah. ‘You see, there are twelve of them in prison, and all because they won't agree whether Mrs. Taper the draper's wife did or did not try to steal some stockings. If they would agree, they could come out to-morrow.'

‘And did the woman try to steal the stockings?' asked the Falcon.

‘I'm sure she didn't,' said Dinah.

‘I think she did,' said Dorinda.

‘You see,' said Dinah, ‘we don't really know, but we all have our own opinion, and naturally we don't mean to give it up.'

‘I am glad that I am not a human being,' said the Puma. ‘It must be very difficult to be happy when your minds are so much at the mercy of ideas.'

‘They have no wings to fly,' said the Falcon, ‘they have no feathers to keep them warm, no beak to cut their food, and their eyes are very dull. But they have ideas, and ideas make them strong. Human beings took us captive, my friend, and human beings set us free.'

‘I do not dislike them, nor underrate them,' said the Puma. ‘But sometimes I am sorry for them.'

‘Sometimes we are sorry for ourselves,' said Dorinda. ‘Especially when it's raining, and we can't run away from Miss Serendip.'

‘Go and talk to your music teacher,' said the Puma, ‘and try to persuade him to change his mind. Tell him you are unhappy because of his imprisonment. Put into his head the idea that his duty is to escape, and perhaps that new idea will drive out the old one that keeps him in gaol.'

‘It sounds rather complicated,' said Dinah, ‘but I suppose we had better try.'

‘It will be something to do,' said Dorinda.

Then for an hour or so they played Touch under rules of their own making, by which the Puma had to walk on her hind legs, Dinah and Dorinda go on all-fours, while the Falcon flapped about using only one wing. After that Dinah and Dorinda, with their frocks torn by brambles and stained by grass, with mud on their elbows and their knees, went home to tea and were soundly scolded by Miss Serendip.

The following day was Thursday, and Tuesdays and Thursdays were Visiting Days at the prison. So in the afternoon they went to see Mr. Casimir Corvo.

About forty people from Midmeddlecum had also gone to visit their friends, taking with them baskets well packed with buns and ham sandwiches and lemon tarts and thermos flasks of tea and bottles of ginger-beer, and they were all sitting on the grass of the prison yard, having a picnic with the Members of the Jury. Mr. Horrabin the ironmonger had brought a gramophone, which was playing
Land of Hope and Glory
, and though they were all enjoying themselves thoroughly, the Members of the Jury managed to look noble and virtuous as well.

Mr. Casimir Corvo, however, was not in the happy group of picnickers. Dinah and Dorinda had to search the whole prison before they found him, at last, on the top floor in a little room that was used for drying clothes. He was sitting on a wooden stool under a clothes-line from which hung a pair of flannel trousers belonging to Mr. Jehu the gaoler, an apron of Mrs. Jehu's, Dr. Fosfar's best shirt, three pocket-handkerchiefs, a bath-towel, and a damp pillow-slip. He rose when Dinah and Dorinda came in, and greeted them with a mournful smile.

‘My dear friends,' he said. ‘My favourite pupils! You have come to visit your old master? That is so kind of you.'

He was a small man with a handsome cleanshaven face as white as a chicken bone. He had large dark eyes under thick dark eyebrows that moved up and down whenever he became excited. Sometimes the left one appeared to rise half-way up his forehead, and sometimes the right one descended in a fearful one-sided frown. His hair was thick and rather curly, and grew to a point in the middle of his pale brow. He made frequent gestures with his hands, which were long and delicate, and he walked with a light and graceful step. People in Midmeddlecum thought he wore strange clothes, but in Dinah's opinion his dark-green velvet jacket and yellow corduroy trousers suited him very well, and Dinah greatly admired his red waistcoat with brass buttons and his white silk shirt. He spoke perfect English, but he filled it with unusual sounds, with trilling
r
's, and
t
's that made you think someone had struck a tuning-fork on the table, and long vowels with a song in them.

‘You will suppose,' he said, ‘that this is a strange place in which to find me, this room in which people hang their clothes to dry. But I had to bring my pillow-slip here, because this morning, when I woke up, I was filled with sadness to think that I must stay in prison. So I began to cry, and it became quite wet. You, because you are English, will think it silly for a grown-up man to cry. But in my country, when people are sad, they all cry, whether they are big or little. And when they are happy, they laugh. The biggest and the littlest together, they all laugh.'

‘It was very sensible of you to hang up your pillow-slip before going to bed again,' said Dinah.

‘If you had gone to sleep on it while it was wet,' said Dorinda, ‘you would have caught a cold, and that would have made you sadder than ever.'

‘So I thought,' said Mr. Corvo, ‘because I am not altogether silly. Indeed, when I consider many other people whom I know, I often think that I am a very sensible kind of person.'

‘Would you like to escape from prison?' asked Dinah.

‘Alas!' said Mr. Corvo, ‘I cannot. I must remain here with all the other Members of the Jury. It is my duty. But tell me this: have you forgotten all the music I taught you, and all the dances? Or are you remembering them, and practicing every day?'

‘It's very difficult to remember much without you to help us,' said Dorinda. ‘We used to enjoy our music and dancing more than anything else, and we shall continue to be thoroughly unhappy until we resume our lessons with you.'

She spoke very clearly and carefully, as though she were repeating a poem that she had learnt by heart. She and Dinah, indeed, had earnestly considered what they should say to Mr. Corvo, and on the way to the prison had rehearsed their speeches over and over again. Now it was Dinah's turn.

‘You have a duty to us, your pupils,' she said, ‘as well as to your fellow-prisoners. Perhaps it is your duty to think of that duty first and the other duty second, like remembering to brush your teeth before going to bed, and if so you ought to make up your mind to escape, and we shall do our utmost to help you.'

‘We are very good at helping people to escape,' said Dorinda, ‘and all the benefit of our long experience is at your service.'

‘You can rely on us,' said Dinah.

They stood there, between the clothes-lines, with trousers and towels in front of them, and tea-cloths and pyjamas behind them, and stared at Mr. Corvo with earnest, anxious eyes. Mr. Corvo stared at them. His eyebrows began to move up and down, first one and then the other, and before he spoke he made several beautiful gestures with his long white hands. Then he said ‘No!' and sat down again.

Dinah whispered, ‘It's your turn, Dorinda.'

‘I've forgotten what comes next,' murmured Dorinda.

‘
In addressing
. . .'

‘In addressing a final appeal to you,' said Dorinda firmly, ‘we rely on the affection that you have so often shown us . . .'

‘No, no!' cried Mr. Corvo, jumping from his stool and waving his hands as though he were conducting an orchestra. ‘You must not appeal to my affection. That is not fair! I want so much to escape, more than anything in the world I want to come out of prison and teach you again to dance and play the piano, but it is my duty, my horrible but so necessary duty, to remain here. I have sworn that I shall never give in to Mr. Justice Rumple, and if I were to escape it would be like running away from him. It would be running away from my duty, which is to resist him and resist all tyranny wherever it appears.'

‘Then you may have to stay in prison all your life,' said Dinah.

Mr. Corvo struck an attitude. He stood very straight and still, with his head proud and high. He laid the long fingers of his left hand on his heart, and raising the other hand towards a corner of the ceiling he declared, ‘If it has to be so, it will be so. I shall never give in!'

But a moment later he turned and covered his face with the drying bath-towel, wiped away a double stream of tears, and cried, ‘But I hope it will not be so! I want to come out of prison very soon. I shall do my duty, but oh, I do not want my duty to be more difficult than I can bear!'

‘Well,' said Dinah, ‘we really did come here to help you, and if there is anything you can suggest . . .'

‘You must not ask me to escape.'

‘Then what else can we do?' asked Dorinda.

‘There is only one way out of the difficulty,' said Mr. Corvo. ‘Neither I nor any other Member of the Jury will ever give in, and therefore Mr. Justice Rumple must give in. Make him change his mind, persuade him that he is in the wrong, and then we can all go free. That is the only way.'

‘Oh dear,' said Dinah, ‘that isn't going to be easy.'

‘It would be far, far easier to plan your escape,' said Dorinda.

‘You do realise, don't you,' said Dinah, ‘that what you have asked us to do is very, very difficult indeed?'

‘It is so difficult,' said Mr. Corvo in a melancholy voice, ‘that I fully expect you to say it is impossible.'

‘No, I wouldn't say that,' said Dinah thoughtfully.

‘We have done several things,' said Dorinda, ‘that a lot of people would have considered
quite
impossible.'

‘It's really surprising,' said Dinah, ‘how much you can do if you make up your mind to do it.'

‘Sometimes it is
very
surprising,' said Dorinda.

Mr. Corvo shook his head in a mournful fashion, and took his pillow-slip off the line. ‘It is dry now,' he said. ‘But by to-morrow morning, I daresay, it will again be full of tears. Good-bye, my dear friends, my favourite pupils. Come again to see me.'

‘The next time we see you,' said Dinah firmly, ‘you will be in your own house in Holly Street.'

On Saturday morning they walked with Miss Serendip into Midmeddlecum to do some shopping, and on the way Dorinda said to Dinah, ‘Have you thought of anything yet?'

‘Not yet,' said Dinah.

‘It was very nearly a promise that we made him,' said Dorinda. ‘I mean, when you said that the next time we saw him he would be in his own house in Holly Street. That was practically a promise.'

‘It was a promise,' said Dinah, ‘and we shall have to keep it. But I don't know how.'

‘Shall we have to keep our promises even when we are grown-up?' asked Dorinda.

‘Yes, I think so,' said Dinah. ‘You just can't get out of them.'

‘I thought life would be a lot easier when we grew up,' said Dorinda with a sigh.

‘When we are very old and cautious,' said Dinah, ‘I daresay we shan't make any promises. And that will save trouble.'

‘Look!' exclaimed Dorinda. ‘Those two men in bowler hats—oh, I've forgotten their names!'

‘Mr. Hobson and Mr. Jobson,' said Dinah.

‘They're lawyers, aren't they?'

‘I think they're called barristers.'

‘Well, it's the same sort of thing. It was they who had to argue with the Judge and the Jury when Mrs. Taper was tried.'

Mr. Hobson and Mr. Jobson

‘They have to be paid, of course,' said Dinah thoughtfully. ‘How much money have you got?'

‘Seven shillings in my money-box, and eight-pence in my pocket.'

‘And I've got nine and threepence altogether. That makes sixteen and elevenpence between us.'

‘It's a lot of money,' said Dorinda.

‘Do you think we should ask them to help us?'

‘They know how to argue with people,' said Dorinda. ‘Especially with Judges.'

‘It's a good idea,' said Dorinda. ‘But we shall have to lose Miss Serendip first.'

They were walking along Ash Street towards the Square, and Mr. Hobson and Mr. Jobson were a little way ahead of them. The two barristers were knocking at every door in the street, Mr. Hobson on the left of the road, Mr. Jobson on the right, and whenever a door was opened, Mr. Hobson—or Mr. Jobson, as the case might be—would immediately begin to talk, in a very earnest way, to the person who had opened it. But what they were talking about neither Dinah nor Dorinda could guess.

They and Miss Serendip continued to walk along Ash Street, turned the corner into Wallflower Street, and came into the Square.

Then Miss Serendip stopped and said to them in a brisk and businesslike way, ‘Now, girls, I have quite a lot of shopping to do, and as you would only hinder me, you had better go and talk to those children beside the statue. But remember this: I don't want you to leave the Square!'