Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

“Well, one night she was sitting all alone like that, wondering what was keeping her husband so long, and if he would beat her, as usual, when he did come home. She hadn’t had a bit to eat for many, many hours, and was just beginning to feel hungry and faint, when a tiny wee fish swam in by the chimney, and pop! Mrs Polypus had it down her throat in a twinkling; but as ill-luck would have it, who should return at the very moment but her wicked husband. He had evidently been eating even more than usual, and looked both flushed and angry.

“‘Now, Mrs Polypus,’ he began, ‘I saw that. How dared you, when you knew I was coming home to supper, and there wasn’t a morsel in the larder?’

“‘Oh! please, Peterie,’ said poor little Mrs Polypus, beginning to cry, ‘I really didn’t mean to; but I was so hungry, and – ’

“‘Hungry?’ roared the husband; ‘how dared you to be hungry? – how dared you be anything at all, in fact? But there, I shall not irritate myself by talking to you. Bring it back again.’

“‘Oh! if you please, Peterie – ’ cried Mrs Polypus.

“‘Bring it back again, I say,’ cried Mr Polypus, making all his arms swing round and round like a wheel, till you could hardly have seen one of them, and finally crossing them on his chest; and, leaning on the back of the chair, he looked sternly down on his spouse, and said – ‘Disgorge at once!’

“‘I won’t, then, and, what is more, I shan’t; there!’ said the wee woman, for even a woman as well as a worm will turn when very much trodden upon.

“‘Good gracious me!’ cried Mr Polypus, fairly aghast with astonishment; ‘does – she – actually – dare – to – defy me?’ but ‘Ho! ho!’ he added, likewise ‘He! he!’ and ‘we’ll see;’ and he strode to the window and bolted it, and strode to the door and bolted that; then he took the phosphorus lamp and extinguished it.

“‘It’ll be so dark, Peterie,’ said his wife, beginning to be frightened.

“‘There is light enough for what I have to do,’ said Peterie, sternly. Then he opened a great yawning mouth, and he seized her first by one arm, and then by another, until he had the whole within his grasp, and she all the time kicking with her one leg, and screaming —

“‘Oh! please don’t, Peterie. Oh! Peterie, don’t.’

“But he heeded not her cries, which every moment became weaker and more far-away like, until they ceased entirely, and the unhappy Mrs Polypus was nowhere to be seen. Her husband had swallowed her alive!

“As soon as he had done so he sat down by the fire, looking rather swollen, and feeling big and not altogether comfortable; but how could he expect to be, after swallowing his wife? He leaned his head on three arms and gazed pensively into the fire.

“‘After all,’ he said to himself, ‘I may have been just a little too hasty, for she wasn’t at all a bad little woman, taking her all-in-all. Heigho! I fear I’ll never see her like again.’

“Hark! a loud knocking at the door. He starts and listens, and trembles like the guilty thing he is. The knocking was repeated in one continuous stream of rat-tats.

“‘Hullo! Peterie,’ cried a voice; ‘open the door.’

“‘Who is there?’ asked Peterie at last.

“‘Why, man, it is I – Potassium Pompey. Whatever is up with you to-day that you are barred and bolted like this? Afraid of thieves? Eh?’

“‘No,’ said Peterie, undoing the fastenings and letting Pompey come in; ‘it isn’t that exactly. The fact is, I wasn’t feeling very well, and just thought I would lie down for a little while.’

“‘You don’t look very ill, anyhow,’ said Pompey; ‘and you are actually getting stouter, I think!’

“‘Well,’ replied Peterie, ‘you see, I’ve been out fishing, and had a good dinner, and perhaps I’ve eaten rather more, I believe, than is good for me.’

“‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ said Pompey, sarcastically; for the truth is, he had been keeking through the chinks of the shutters, and had seen the whole tragedy.

“‘A decided case of dropsy, I should think,’ added Pompey.

“Peterie groaned.

“‘Take a seat,’ he said to Pompey. ‘I believe you are my friend, and I want to have a little talk with you; I – I want to make a clean breast of it.’

“‘Well, I’m all attention,’ replied Pompey – ‘all ears, as the donkey said.’

“‘Fact is, then,’ continued Peterie, ‘I’ve been a rather unhappy man of late, and my wife and I never understood one another, and never agreed. She was in love with some scoundrel, you know, before we were married – leastways, so they tell me – and I – I’m really afraid I’ve swallowed her, Pompey.’

“‘Hum!’ said Pompey; ‘and does she agree any better with you now?’

“‘No,’ replied Peterie, ‘that’s just the thing; she’s living all the wrong way, somehow, and I fear she won’t digest.’

“‘Wretch!’ cried Peterie, starting to his feet, ‘behold me. Gaze upon this wasted form: I am he who loved poor Peggy before her fatal marriage. Oh! my Peggy, my loved, my lost, my half-digested Peggy, shall we never meet again?’

“‘Sooner,’ cried Peterie, ‘perhaps than you are aware of. So it was you who loved my silly wife?’

“‘It was I.’

“‘Wretch, you shall die.’

“‘Never,’ roared Pompey, ‘while I live.’

“‘We shall see,’ said Peterie.

“‘Come on,’ said Pompey, ‘set the table on one side and give us room.’

“That was a fearful fight that battle of the polyps. It is awful enough to see two men fighting who have only two arms a side, but when it comes to twenty arms each, and all these arms are whirling round at once, like a select assortment of windmills that have run mad, then, I can tell you, it is very much more dreadful. Now Peterie has the advantage.

“Now Pompey is down.

“Now he is up again and Peterie falls.

“Now Peterie half swallows Pompey.

“Now Pompey appears again as large as life, and half swallows Peterie; but at last, by one unlucky blow administered by ten fists at once, down rolls Potassium Pompey lifeless on Peterie’s floor. Peterie bent over the body of Pompey.

“‘Bad job,’ he mutters, ‘he is dead. And the question comes to be, what shall I do with the body? Ha! happy thought! the struggle has given me an appetite, I’ll swallow him too.’

“Barely had he thus disposed of poor Pompey’s body, when a renewed knocking was heard at the outside door. There was not a moment to lose; so Peterie hastily set the furniture in order, and bustled away to open the door, and hardly had he done so when in rushed an excited mob of polyps headed by two warlike policemen, who headed them by keeping well in the rear, but being, after the manner of policemen, very loud in their talk.

“‘Where is Potassium Pompey?’ cried one; and —

“‘Ay! where is Potassium Pompey?’ cried another; and —

“‘To be sure, where is Potassium Pompey?’ cried a third; and —

“‘That is the question, young man,’ cried both policemen at once.

“‘Where is Potassium Pompey?’

“‘Oh!’ groaned Peterie, ‘would I were as big as a bullfrog, that I might swallow you all at a gulp.’

“‘Away with him, my friends,’ cried the warlike policemen, ‘to the hall of justice.’

“In the present state of Peterie’s digestive organs, resistance was not to be thought of; so he quietly submitted to be led out with ten pairs of handcuffs on his wrists, and dragged along the street, followed by the hooting mob, who wanted to hang him on the spot; but a multitude of policemen now arrived, and being at the rate of three policemen to each civilian polyp, the hanging was prevented. The justice hall was a very large building right in the centre of Coral Town. There the judges used to sit night and day on a large pearl throne at one end to try the cases that were brought before them.

“Now Potassium Pompey was a very great favourite in Coral Town, so that when the wretched Peterie was dragged by fifteen brave policemen before the pearl throne, the hall was quite filled, and you might have heard a midge sneeze, if there had been a midge to sneeze, so great was the silence. The first accuser was Popkins, the miserly old polyp who was poor Peggy’s father. He was too wretchedly thin and weak and old to hop in like any other polyp, so he came along the hall walking on his one foot and his twenty hands after the fashion of the looper caterpillar, which I daresay you have observed on a currant-bush.

“‘Where is me chee – ild?’ cried the aged miser, as soon as he could speak. ‘Give me back me chee – ild?’

“‘If that’s all you’ve got to say,’ said the judge, sternly, ‘you’d better stand down.’

“‘I merely want me chee – ild,’ repeated Popkins.

“‘Stand down, sir,’ cried the judge.

“After hearing various witnesses who had seen Pompey enter Peterie’s house and never return, the judge opened his mouth and spake, for Peterie had said never a word. The judge gave it as his unbiassed opinion that, considering all things, the mysterious disappearance of Mrs Polypus, coupled with that of Potassium Pompey, whom every one loved and admired, the absence of all defence on the part of the prisoner, and the extraordinary rotundity of his corporation, as well as the fact that he had always been a spare man, there could be little doubt of the prisoner’s guilt; ‘but to make assurance doubly sure,’ added the judge, ‘let him at once be opened, to furnish additional proof, and the opening of the prisoner, I trust, will close the case.’ If guilty, the sentence of the Court was that he should then be dragged to the common execution ground, and there divided into one hundred pieces, and he, the judge, hoped it would be a warning to the prisoner in all future time.”

(When a polyp is cut into pieces, each piece becomes a new individual.)

“Twenty policemen now rushed away and brought the biggest knife they could find; twenty more went for ropes, and having procured them, the wretched Mr Polypus was bound to a table, and before he could have said ‘cheese,’ if he had wanted to say ‘cheese,’ an immense opening was made in his side, and, lo and behold! out stepped first Potassium Pompey, and after him hopped, modestly hopped, poor Peggy. But the most wonderful part of the whole business was, that neither Peggy nor Pompey seemed a bit the worse for their strange incarceration. Indeed, I ought to say they looked all the better; for Pompey was all smiles, and Peggy was looking very happy indeed, and even Peterie seemed immensely relieved. Pompey led Peggy before the throne, and here he told all the story about how Peggy was murdered, and then how he, Pompey, was murdered next. And —

“‘Enough! enough!’ cried the judge; ‘away with the doomed wretch! Let the execution be proceeded with without a moment’s delay.’

“‘Please, my lord,’ said Peggy, modestly, ‘may I have a divorce?’

“‘To be sure, to be sure,’ said the judge; ‘you are justly entitled to a divorce.’

“‘And please, my lord,’ continued Peggy, ‘may – may – ’

“‘Well? well?’ said the judge, with slight impatience, ‘out with it.’

“‘She wants to ask if she may marry me,’ said Pompey, boldly.

“‘Most assuredly,’ said the judge, ‘and a blessing be on you both.’

“In vain the unhappy Peterie begged and prayed for mercy; he was hurried away to the execution ground and led to the scaffold. In all that crowd of upturned faces, Peterie saw not one pitying eye. And now a large barrel was placed to receive the pieces, and, beginning with his head and arms, the executioners cut him into one hundred pieces, leaving nothing of Peterie but the foot.

“‘Now,’ cried the judge, ‘empty the barrel on the floor.’

“This was done.

“And it did seem that wonders would never cease, for as soon as each piece was thrown on the floor it immediately grew up into a real live polyp, and body and arms all complete and hopping; and the foot, which had been left, and which was more especially Peterie’s – being all that remained of him, you know – grew up into another polyp, and behold there was another and a new Peterie. He was at once surrounded by the ninety and nine new polyps, who all threw their arms – nineteen hundred and ninety arms – around his neck, and began to kiss him and call him dearest dada.

“‘On my honour,’ said Peterie, ‘I think this is rather too much of a joke.’

“But nobody had any pity on him, and the judge said – ‘Now, Mr Polypus, let this be a lesson to you. Go home at once and work for your children, and remember you support them; if even one of them comes to solicit parish relief, dread the consequences.’

“‘How ever shall I manage?’ said poor Peterie.

“And he hopped away disconsolate enough amid his ninety and nine baby polyps all crying —

“‘Dada dear, give us a fish.’

“‘I think,’ said the judge, when Peterie had gone – ‘I think, Mr Popkins, you cannot now do better than consent to make these two young things happy by letting them wed. Pompey, it is true, isn’t a king, but he has an excellent business in the potassium line, and none of us can live without fire, you know.’

“‘But I’m a king,’ cried the aged miser; ‘I have mines of wealth, and all I have is theirs. Come to your father’s arms, my Peggy and Pompey.’

“‘Hurrah!’ shouted the mob; ‘three cheers for the old miser, and three for Pompey the brave, and three times three for the bonny bride Peggy.’

“And away rolled Peggy in the golden chariot, with her father – such a happy, happy Peggy now; and Pompey was carried through the streets, shoulder high, to his old home.

“So nothing was talked about in Coral Town for the next month but the grandeur of the coming wedding, and the beauty of Peggy, and everybody was happy and gay except poor Peterie; for who could be happy with ninety-nine babies to provide for – ninety-nine breakfasts to get, ninety-nine dinners, ninety-nine teas and suppers all in one, two hundred and ninety-seven meals to provide in one day?

“There were no more fishing excursions for him, no more big dinners, and he worked and toiled to get ends to meet deep down in a potassium mine in the darkest, dismalest corner of Coral Town. And everybody said —

“‘It serves him right, the cruel wretch.’

“What a wonderful house that was which Pompey built for his Peggy!

“It was charmingly situated on the slope of a wooded hill, quite in the country. Pompey spent months in furnishing and decorating it, and his greatest pleasure was to superintend all the work himself. Such trees you never saw as grew in the gardens and park, marine trees whose very leaves seemed more lovely than any terrestrial flower, and they were incessantly moving their branches backwards and forwards with a gentle undulating motion, as if they luxuriated in the sight of each other’s beauty. Such flowers! – living, breathing flowers they were, and radiant with rainbow tints, flowers that whispered together, and beckoned and bowed and made love to each other. Then those delightful rockeries, half hidden here and there amid the wealth of foliage, and there were curious shells of brilliant colours that made music whenever there was the slightest ripple in the water, and whole colonies of the quaintest little animals that ever you dreamt of crept in and crept out of every fissure or miniature cave in the rocks.

“At night the garden was all lighted up with phosphorescent lamps; but inside the palace itself, in the spacious halls, along the marble staircases, and in the beautiful rooms, nothing short of diamond lights would satisfy Pompey; for you must know that Pompey thought nothing too good for Peggy. So each room was lighted up by a diamond, that shone in the centre of the vaulted roof like a large and beautiful star. Some of these diamonds suffused a rosy light throughout the apartment, the light from others was of a paley green, and from others a faint saffron, while in one room the light from the diamond was for ever changing as you may see the planet Mars doing, if you choose to watch – one moment it was a bright, clear, bluish white, next a rainbow green, and anon changing to deepest crimson. This was a very favourite dining-hall with Pompey, for the simple reason that no one could be sure how his neighbour looked. For instance, if a lady blushed, it did not look like a blush – oh dear no – but a flash of rosy light; if an old gentleman indulged rather much in the pleasures of the table, and began to feel ill in consequence, not a bit of it, he was never better in his life – it was the bluish flash from the diamond; and so, again, if last night’s lobster salad rendered any one yellow and bilious-looking, he could always blame the poor pretty diamond.

“In some rooms the chairs themselves were made of precious stones, and the ottomans and couches built of a single pearl.

“At length everything was completed to Pompey’s entire satisfaction, and he had given any number of gay parties and balls, just by way of warming the house. Pompey flattered himself he had the best provisions in his cellars and the best-trained servants in all Coral Town, and of course nobody cared to deny that. These servants were nearly all of different shapes: some were properly-made polyps; some rolled in when Pompey touched the gong, rolled in like a gig-wheel without the rim, all legs and arms, and the body in the centre; some were merely round balls, and you couldn’t see any head or legs or arms at all till they stopped in front of you, then they popped them all out at once; some walked in, others hopped, one or two floated, and one queer old chap walked on the crown of his head. If you think this is not all strictly true, you have only to take a microscope and look for yourself.

“‘Heigho!’ said Pompey one day, after he had finished a dinner fit to set before a polyp king, ‘all I now want to make me perfectly happy is Peggy. Peggy – Peggy! what a sweetly pretty name it is to be sure! Peggy!’

“And that came too; for if you wait long enough for any particular day, it is sure to come at last, just as whistling at sea makes the wind blow, which it invariably does – when you whistle long enough.

“And never was such a day of rejoicing seen in Coral Town. The bells were ringing and the banners all waving almost before the phosphorescent lamps began to pale in the presence of day.

“Then everybody turned out.

“And everybody seemed to take leave of his senses by special arrangement.

“All but poor Peterie, who was left all by himself to work away in the deep, dark potassium mine. The wedding took place in Peggy’s father’s – Popkins’s – house. The old miser, miser no more though, was half crazy with joy. And nothing would satisfy him but to have one of the upper servants cooked for his breakfast. He didn’t care, he said, whether it was Jeames or the butler. So the butcher dressed the butler, and he was stewed for his master’s breakfast with sauce of pearls powdered in ambrosia.

“And after the ceremony was performed, Pompey appeared on the balcony, clasping Peggy to his heart with ten arms, while he gave ten other hands to Popkins, his father-in-law, to shake as he cried —

“‘Bless you, bless you, my children.’

“Then such a ringing cheer was heard, as never was heard before, or any time since. Even Peterie heard it down in the darkling mine, swallowed a ball of potassium, and died on the spot. As soon as Peterie was dead, he (Peterie) said, ‘Well now, I wonder I never thought of that before;’ because he at once grew up again into ten new polyps, who forthwith left the mine, joined the revellers, and shouted louder than all the rest.

“And when at last Peggy was in Peterie’s house, when the idol of his love became the light of his home, when he saw her there before him, so blooming and bonnie, he opened his twenty arms, and she opened her twenty arms, and —

“‘Peggy!’ cried Pompey; and —

“‘Pompey!’ cried Peggy; and —

“Down drops the curtain. It would be positively mean and improper to keep it up one moment longer.”