Wise Children by Angela Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

the grandparents.
    Now, how had it come to pass that Peregrine Hazard, with a dove in his pocket, popped up in Brixton that glorious afternoon to make us all happy? Remember, you last saw him haring down the Great White Way out of the clutches of his Aunt Effie into –
    Into what? That’s a poser.
    Over the years, Peregrine offered us a Chinese banquet of options as to what happened to him next. He gave us all his histories, we could choose which ones we wanted – but they kept on changing, so. That was the trouble. Did he really meet up with Ambrose Bierce in a flophouse in El Paso and go off with him to fight in Mexico? (In confirmation of this, in sole confirmation, I’m bound to say, one personalised dedication in a copy of The Devil’s Dictionary .) Was it true he’d posed as Ben Traven? I knew for a fact he’d worked in circuses. Unless it was on the halls. Or else he’d perfected his stage magic, his juggling and conjuring tricks, to entertain his fellow prospectors during the long winter evenings in Alaska. Above all, how did he grow so rich?
    ‘That’s easy,’ he said and his face split in a big grin. ‘I struck gold in Alaska.’
    But he was a very good juggler. You couldn’t deny him that. He told me once that W. C. Fields taught him how to juggle, but I’m not sure I believe that.
    Grandma was pleased to see that such a handsome young man had got out of the clutches of the old men with only a flesh wound to show for it, i.e. shrapnel in the upper arm; it gave her hope for the continuance of the human race, she said. The more he and Grandma chewed the fat, the more they saw eye to eye until at last, all embarrassment, he told her the reason for his visit . . . it turned out that he’d volunteered to bear Grandma the glad tidings of Melchior’s impending marriage.
    Yes! Melchior was engaged to be married and wanted to pay us all off in case we made trouble at some future date.
    ‘He’s changed his tune,’ said Grandma. ‘I bearded the bastard in his den after a matinée of Romeo the other day; he was at a disadvantage, he’d only got his tights and some mascara on but he still denied paternity.’
    ‘Between you and me,’ confided Peregrine, ‘I do believe he’s afraid you’ll show up at the wedding with the girls in tow.’
    They roared. We kiddies didn’t understand one word, of course, but we looked from one to the other and started laughing because they were laughing. ‘Poor little innocents,’ said Grandma. The pirates’ father was joining high society – a grand wedding in St John’s Smith Square, with twelve bridesmaids, and dukes present, and the bride in white by Worth, which is when we first heard the name, Lady Atalanta Lynde.
    ‘The bride is loaded, ladies,’ Perry assured us.
    ‘Well,’ said Mrs Chance, ‘let him unload some of his ill-gotten gains on us.’ Seeing Perry’s dubious look: ‘If you haven’t got a ticket, you can’t win, me old duck. Remember the Russian proverb: “Hope for the best, expect the worst”.’
    That was her motto. Ours, too.
    But after all that, it was Peregrine himself who did the gentlemanly thing. That is, his name was on the cheques that now started to arrive the first of every month at Bard Road. When Grandma quizzed him, he went pink under his freckles and said, Melchior and he decided to give out that it was Peregrine who’d done the dirty deed, if anybody asked, and, begging her pardon, would she ever forgive him? but he’d used her name in vain. That is, Mrs Chance, our adoptive grandma and guardian, had gone down in the account books as our mother to keep the accountants happy. ‘They’ve as good as married us!’ she said. She laughed so much she fell off her chair.
    But we little girls paid no attention; we crouched over Perry’s latest gift, a phonograph, as, with the most exquisite care, Nora set down the needle on the wondrous black Bakelite pancake our Uncle Perry had told us would sing for us, if we wound up