Sun and Moon
Mansfield

.. 

  In the afternoon the chairs came, a whole big cart full of
little gold ones with their legs in the air. And then the
flowers came. When you stared down from the balcony at the
people carrying them the flowerpots looked like funny awfully
nice hats nodding up the path.
  Moon thought they were hats. She said: "Look. there's
a man wearing a palm on his head." But she never knew the
difference between real things and not real ones.
  There was nobody to look after Sun and Moon. Nurse
was helping Annie alter Mother's dress which was much-too
long-and tight-under-the-arms and Mother was running all
over the house and telephoning Father to be sure not to forget
things. She only had time to say: "Out of my way, children!"
  They kept out of her way -- at any rate Sun did. He did so
hate being sent stumping back to the nursery. It didn't matter
about Moon. If she got tangled in people's legs they only
threw her up and shook her till she squeaked. But Sun was too
heavy for that. He was so heavy that the fat man who came to
dinner on Sundays used to say: "Now, young man, let's try
to lift you." And then he'd put his thumbs under Sun's arms
and groan and try and give it up at last saying: "He's a perfect
little ton of bricks!"
  Nearly all the furniture was taken out of the dining-room.
The big piano was put in a corner and then there came a row of
flower pots and then there came the goldy chairs. That was for
the concert. When Sun looked in a white-faced man sat at the
piano -- not playing, but banging at it and then looking inside.
He had a bag of tools on the piano and he had stuck his hat on a
statue against the wall.
.. 

Sometimes he just started to play and
then he jumped up again and looked inside. Sun hoped he
wasn't the concert.
  But of course the place to be in was the kitchen. There was
a man helping in a cap like a blancmange, and their real cook,
Minnie, was all red in the face and laughing. Not cross at all.
She gave them each an almond finger and lifted them up on to the
flour bin so that they could watch the wonderful things she and
the man were making for supper. Cook brought in the things
and he put them on dishes and trimmed them. Whole fishes,

 
with their heads and eyes and tails still on, he sprinkled with
red and green and yellow bits; he made squiggles all over the
jellies, he stuck a collar on a ham and put a very thin sort of a
fork in it; he dotted almonds and tiny round biscuits on the
creams. And more and more things kept coming.
  "Ah, but you haven't seen the ice pudding," said Cook.
"Come along." Why was she being so nice, thought Sun as
she gave them each a hand. And they looked into the
refigerator.
  Oh! Oh! Oh! It was a little house. It was a little pink
house with white snow on the roof and green windows and a
brown door and stuck in the door there was a nut for a handle.
  When Sun saw the nut he felt quite tired and had to lean
against Cook.
  "Let me touch it. Just let me put my finger on the roof,"
said Moon, dancing. She always wanted to touch all the food.
Sun didn't.
  "Now, my girl, look sharp with the table," said Cook as
the housemaid came in.
  "It's a picture, Min," said Nellie. "Come along and have a
look." So they all went into the dining-room. Sun and Moon
were almost frightened. They wouldn't go up to the table at
first; they just stood at the door and made eyes at it.
  It wasn't real night yet but the blinds were down in the
dining-room and the lights turned on -- and all the lights were
red roses. Red ribbons and bunches of roses tied up the table
at the corners. In the middle was a lake with rose petals floating
on it.
  "That's where the ice pudding is to be," said Cook.
  Two silver lions with wings had fruit on their backs and the
salt-cellars were tiny birds drinking out of basins.
.. 

  And all the winking glasses and shining plates and sparkling
knives and forks -- and all the food. And the little red table
napkins made into roses....
  "Are people going to eat the food?" asked Sun.


  "I should think they are," laughed Cook, laughing
with Nellie. Moon laughed, too; she always did the same as
other people. But Sun didn't want to laugh. Round and
round he walked with his hands behind his back. Perhaps he
never would have stopped if Nurse hadn't called suddenly:
"Now then, children. It's high time you were washed and
dressed." And they were marched off to the nursery.
  While they were being unbuttoned Mother looked in with a
white thing over her shoulders; she was rubbing stuff on her
face.
  "I'll ring for them when I want them, Nurse, and then they
can just come down and be seen and go back again," said she.
  Sun was undressed, first nearly to his skin, and dressed again
in a white shirt with red and white daisies speckled on it,
breeches with strings at the sides and braces that came over,
white socks and red shoes.
  "Now you're in your Russian costume," said Nurse, flattening down his fringe.
  "Am I?" said Sun.
  "Yes. Sit quiet in that chair and watch your little sister."
  Moon took ages. When she had her socks put on she pretended
to fall back on the bed and waved her legs at Nurse as
she always did, and every time Nurse tried to make her curls
with a finger and a wet brush she turned round and asked
Nurse to show her the photo of her brooch or something like
that. But at last she was finished too. Her dress stuck out,
with fur on it, all white; there was even fluffy stuff on the
legs of her drawers. Her shoes were white with big blobs
on them.
  "There you are, my lamb," said Nurse. "And you look
like a sweet little cherub of a picture of a powder-puff?" Nurse
rushed to the door. "Ma'am, one moment."
  Mother came in again with half her hair down.
  "Oh," she cried. "What a picture!"
  "Isn't she," said Nurse.


.. 

  And Moon held out her skirts by the tips and dragged one
of her feet. Sun didn't mind people not noticing him -- much....
  After that they played clean, tidy games up at the table while
Nurse stood at the door, and when the carriages began to come
and the sound of laughter and voices and soft rustlings came
from down below she whispered: "Now then, children, stay
where you are." Moon kept jerking the tablecloth so that it
all hung down her side and Sun hadn't any -- and then she
pretended she didn't do it on purpose.
  At last the bell rang. Nurse pounced at them with the
hair-brush, flattened his fringe, made her bow stand on end
and joined their hands together.
  "Down you go!" she whispered.
  And down they went. Sun did feel silly holding Moon's
hand like that but Moon seemed to like it. She swung her
arm and the bell on her coral bracelet jingled.
  At the drawing-room door stood Mother fanning herself
with a black fan. The drawing-room was full of sweet-smelling,
silky, rustling ladies and men in black with funny tails on their
coats -- like beetles. Father was among them, talking very
loud, and rattling something in his pocket.
  "What a picture!" cried the ladies. "Oh, the ducks! Oh,
the lambs! Oh, the sweets! Oh, the pets!"
  All the people who couldn't get at Moon kissed Sun, and a
skinny old lady with teeth that clicked said: "Such a serious
little poppet," and rapped him on the head with something
hard.
  Sun looked to see if the same concert was there, but he was
gone. Instead, a fat man with a pink head leaned over the
piano talking to a girl who held a violin at her ear.
  There was only one man that Sun really liked. He was a little
grey man, with long grey whiskers, who walked about by
himself. He came up to Sun and rolled his eyes in a very nice
way and said: "Hullo, my lad." Then he went away. But
soon he came back again and said: "Fond of dogs?" Sun


said: "Yes." But then he went away again, and though Sun
looked for him everywhere he couldn't find him. He thought
perhaps he had gone outside to fetch in a puppy.
.. 

  "Good night, my precious babies," said Mother, folding
them up in her bare arms. "Fly up to your little nest."
  Then Moon went and made a silly of herself again. She
put up her arms in front of everybody and said: "My Daddy
must carry me."
  But they seemed to like it, and Daddy swooped down and
picked her up as he always did.
  Nurse was in such a hurry to get them to bed that she even
interrupted Sun over his prayers and said: "Get on with them,
child, d_o_." And the moment after they were in bed and in the
dark except for the night-light in its little saucer.
  "Are you asleep?" asked Moon.
  "No," said Sun. "Are you?"
  "No," said Moon.
  A long time after Sun woke up again. There was a loud,
loud noise of clapping from downstairs, like when it rains.
He heard Moon turn over.
  "Moon, are you awake?"
  "Yes, are you?"
  "Yes. Well, let's go and look over the stairs."
  They had just got settled on the top step when the drawing-room
door opened and they heard the party cross over the hall
into the dining-room. Then that door was shut; there was
a noise of "pops" and laughing. Then that stopped and Sun
saw them all walking round and round the lovely table with
their hands behind their backs like he had done...Round and
round they walked, looking and staring. The man with the
grey whiskers liked the little house best. When he saw the
nut for a handle he rolled his eyes like he did before and said
to Sun: "Seen the nut?"
  "Don't nod your head like that, Moon."
  "I'm not nodding. It's you."


  "It is not. I never nod my head."
  "O-oh, you do. You're nodding it now."
  "I'm not. I'm only showing you how not to do it."
  When they woke up again they could only hear Father's
voice very loud, and Mother, laughing away. Father came
out of the dining-room, bounded up the stairs, and nearly fell
over them.
  "Hullo!" he said. "By Jove, Kitty, come and look at
this."
.. 

  Mother came out. "Oh, you naughty children," said she
from the hall.
  "Let's have 'em down and give 'em a bone," said Father.
Sun had never seen him so jolly.
  "No, certainly not," said Mother.
  "Oh, my Daddy, do! Do have us down," said Moon.
  "I'm hanged if I won't," cried Father. "I won't be bullied.
Kitty -- way there." And he caught them up, one under each
arm.
  Sun thought Mother would have been dreadfully cross. But
she wasn't. She kept on laughing at Father.
  "Oh, you dreadful boy!" said she. But she didn't mean Sun.
  "Come on, kiddies. Come and have some pickings," said
this jolly Father. But moon stopped a minute.
  "Mother -- your dress is right off one side."
  "Is it?" said Mother. And Father said "Yes" and pretended
to bite her white shoulder, but she pushed him away.
  And so they went back to the beautiful dining-room.
  But -- oh! oh! what had happened. The ribbons and the
roses were all pulled untied. The little red table-napkins lay
on the floor, all the shining plates were dirty and all the winking
glasses. The lovely food that the man had trimmed was all
thrown about, and there were bones and bits and fruit peels
and shells everywhere. There was even a bottle lying down
with stuff coming out of it on to the cloth and nobody stood
it up again.


  And the little pink house with the snow roof and the green
window was broken -- broken -- half melted away in the centre
of the table.
  "Come on,Sun," said Father, pretending not to notice.
  Moon lifted up her pyjama legs and shuffled up to the table
and stood on a chair, squeaking away.
  "Have a bit of this ice," said Father, smashing in some more
of the roof.
  Mother took a little plate and held it for him; she put her
other arm round his neck.
  "Daddy! Daddy!" shrieked Moon. "The little handle's
left. The little nut. Kin I eat it?" And she reached across
and picked it out of the door and scrunched it up, biting hard
and blinking.
.. 

  "Here, my lad," said Father.
  But Sun did not move from the door. Suddenly he put up
his head and gave a loud wail.
  "I think it's horrid -- horrid -- horrid!" he sobbed.
  "There, you see!" said Mother. "You see!"
  "Off with you," said Father, no longer jolly. "This moment.
Off you go!"
  And waling loudly, Sun stumped off to the nursery.