Sinister Street, Compton Mackenzie [classic books for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

used to wonder if it were possible that this fog would last forever, if forever he would live in Carlington Road in this yellow twilight, if his mother had forgotten there ever was such a person as Michael Fane. But, at any rate, he would have to grow up. He could not always be the same size. That was a consolation. It was jolly to dream of being grown-up, to plan one’s behaviour and think of freedom. The emancipation of being grown-up seemed to Michael to be a magnificent prospect. To begin with it was no longer possible to be naughty. He realized, indeed, that crimes were a temptation to some grownups, that people of a certain class committed murders and burglaries, but as he felt no inclination to do either, he looked forward to a life of unbroken virtue.

So far as he could ascertain, grown-up people were exempt from even the necessity to distinguish between good and evil. If Michael examined the Commandments one by one, this became obvious. Thou shalt have none other gods than me. Why should one want to have? One was enough. The Children of Israel must be different from Michael. He could not understand such peculiar people. Make not to thyself any graven image. The only difficulty about this commandment was its length for learning. Otherwise it did not seem to bear on present-day life. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. This was another vague injunction. Who wanted to? Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day. It was obviously a simple matter for grown-up people, who no longer enjoyed playing with toys, to keep this commandment. At present it was difficult to learn and difficult to keep. Honour thy father and thy mother. He loved his mother. He would always love her, even if she forgot him. He might not love her so much as formerly, but he would always love her. Thou shalt do no murder. Michael had no intention of doing murder. Since the Hangman in Punch and Judy he was cured of any inclination towards murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Why should he ever want to marry another man’s wife? At present he could not imagine himself married to anybody. He supposed that as one result of growing up he would get married. But, forewarned, he would take care not to choose somebody else’s wife. Thou shalt not steal. With perfect freedom to eat when and where and what one liked, why should one steal? Thou shalt not bear false witness. It would not be necessary to lie when grown up, because one could not then be punished. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s ox. He would covet nothing, for when he was grown up he would be able to obtain whatever he wanted.

This desire to be grown up sustained him through much, even through the long foggy nights which made his bedroom more fearfully still than before. The room would hardly seem any longer to exist in the murk which crept through it. The crocus-shaped jet of the gas burned in the vaporous midnight with an unholy flame somehow, thought Michael, as candles must look, when at the approach of ghosts they burn blue. How favourable to crime was fog, how cleverly the thief might steal over the coal-yard at the back of the house and with powerful tools compel the backdoor to open. And the murderers, how they must rejoice in the impenetrable air as with long knives they stole out from distant streets in search of victims. Michael’s nerves were so wrought upon by the unchanging gloom of these wintry days that even to be sent by Nurse to fetch her thimble or workbag before tea was a racking experience.

“Now then, Michael, run downstairs like a good boy and fetch my needle and cotton which I left in the morning-room,” Nurse would command. And in the gathering dusk Michael would practically slide downstairs until he reached the basement. Then, clutching the object of his errand, he would brace himself for the slower ascent. Suppose that when he reached the hall there were two skeletons sitting on the hall chest? Suppose that on the landing above a number of rats rushed out from the housemaid’s closet to bite his legs and climb over him and gnaw his face? Suppose that from the landing outside his own room a masked burglar were stealing into his room to hide himself under the bed? Suppose that when he arrived back at the day-nursery, Stella and Nurse were lying with their heads chopped off, as he had once seen a family represented by a pink newspaper in the window of a little shop near Hammersmith Broadway? Michael used to reach his goal, white and shaking, and slam the door against the unseen follower who had dogged his footsteps from the coal-cellar. The cries of a London twilight used to oppress him. From the darkening streets and from the twinkling houses inexplicable sounds floated about the air. They had the sadness of church-bells, and like church-bells they could not be located exactly. Michael thought that London was the most melancholy city in the world. Even at Christmastime, behind all the gaiety and gold of a main road lay the trackless streets that were lit, it seemed, merely by pinpoints of gas, so far apart were the lampposts, such a small sad circle of pavement did they illuminate. The rest was shadows and glooms and whispers. Even in the jollity of the pantomime and comfortable smell of well-dressed people the thought of the journey home through the rainy evening brooded upon the gayest scene. The going home was sad indeed, as in the farthest corner of the jolting omnibus they jogged through the darkness. The painted board of places and fares used to depress Michael. He could not bear to think of the possibilities opened up by the unknown names beyond Piccadilly Circus. Once in a list