The Welfare of the Dead by Lee Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

replies at last, with considerable seriousness, ‘for an elephant.’
    The grey beast lumbers slowly along the tree-lined path towards them. Annabel and Lucy, together with Mrs. Woodrow, stand to one side. Led by a peak-hatted keeper, the animal bears a load of half a dozen passengers, also visitors to the Zoological Gardens. All of them, a man, woman and four children, are balanced precariously upon a wooden knifeboard seat, roped to its back.
    â€˜It’s a miracle they don’t fall,’ says Annabel.
    The keeper, over-hearing the comment, politely raises his whip, held firmly in one hand, to touch his cap.
    â€˜Don’t you fret, Miss,’ he says. ‘Safe as a regular omnibus, if you care for a ride?’
    â€˜She cares for no such thing,’ replies Mrs. Woodrow, ushering her cousin along.
    â€˜â€œSafe as a regular omnibus” indeed,’ says Mrs. Woodrow, once the man and his charges have passedby. ‘Let me tell you, my dear, that is no great recommendation.’
    â€˜But can’t we have a ride, Mama?’ says Lucy, tugging her mother’s skirt.
    â€˜Don’t do that, dear,’ replies Mrs. Woodrow, grabbing her daughter’s hand. ‘You will tear it. And, no, we cannot have a ride. I have told you before, it would not suit my constitution. Have some thought for your mother’s feelings.’
    The little girl’s face darkens considerably, but she says nothing. Her mother looks sharply at her.
    â€˜Lucinda, I swear, you quite exasperate me at times,’ says Mrs. Woodrow. ‘She is playing up,’ she continues,
sotto voce
, to Annabel, ‘because we are in company.’
    â€˜Please,’ replies the little girl, elongating the word enormously.
    â€˜I could take her, Melissa,’ offers Annabel, looking back at the elephant.
    â€˜My dear, your dress would not survive it. Think of the bustle.’
    Annabel Krout looks down at the borrowed bottle-green polonaise she is wearing under her cape, and does not seem overly distraught at the possibility. Nonetheless, she does not argue.
    â€˜I suppose, before we go, if you are a good girl, we might see the hippopotamus,’ says Mrs. Woodrow, addressing Lucy in a conciliatory tone. The little girl, in turn, gives a rather grudging nod.
    â€˜Is he your favourite?’ asks Annabel, as they walk on.
    Lucy shrugs.
    â€˜Do you know,’ Mrs. Woodrow asks her daughter, ‘that I can remember when they first brought the hippo over to the Zoo, when I was a little girl, not much older than you are now?’
    â€˜No,’ says the little girl; but her voice has a hint of curiosity in it.
    â€˜Yes. It caused quite a stir. They even wrote songs about it.’
    Lucy furrows her brow. ‘How did they go?’
    â€˜Now that I cannot quite recall, my dear,’ replies Mrs. Woodrow. ‘Perhaps I will see if I still have the music when we get home. Ah, and here we are.’
    Before them is a barred enclosure, surrounded by an additional set of iron railings, over which the various lookers-on lean. By far the majority are children, and Lucy Woodrow’s face is illuminated with pleasure as she pushes it against the metal, and sees the recumbent, corpulent body of the hippopotamus, glistening with moisture, stretched by the side of his pool. Its eyes are closed and the curves of its scooped mouth peculiarly suggestive of a certain degree of smug contentment.
    â€˜He is rather an ugly brute to be your favourite, Lucy dear,’ says Mrs. Woodrow. ‘For my part, I much prefer the lions.’
    â€˜I like him,’ replies the little girl.
    Mrs. Woodrow pats her daughter’s head. Turning to her cousin, she whispers, ‘He reminds me of Woodrow after his Sunday luncheon.’
    Annabel Krout, in turn, laughs, albeit rather nervously. It is, she cannot help but think, an intimate analogy that does not chime with her limited experience of her host and his