ermine tie. She wore white silk gloves. Sybil was dressed identically, and though this in itself was nothing to marvel at, since numerous small girls wore this ensemble when they were walked out in the parks and public gardens of cathedral towns in 1923, it did fortify the striking resemblance in features, build, and height, between the two children. Sybil suddenly felt she was walking past her own reflection in the long looking-glass. There was her peak chin, her black bobbed hair under her hat, with its fringe almost touching her eyebrows. Her wide-spaced eyes, her nose very small like a cat’s. “Stop staring, Sybil,” whispered her mother. Sybil had time to snatch the gleam of white socks and black patent leather button shoes. Her own socks were white but her shoes were brown, with laces. At first she felt this one discrepancy was wrong, in the sense that it was wrong to step on one of the cracks in the pavement. Then she felt it was right that there should be a difference.
“The Colemans,” Sybil’s mother remarked to her father. “They keep that hotel at Hillend. The child must be about Sybil’s age. Very alike, aren’t they? And I suppose,” she continued for Sybil’s benefit, “she’s a good little girl like Sybil.” Quick-witted Sybil thought poorly of the last remark with its subtle counsel of perfection.
On other occasions, too, they passed the Coleman child on a Sunday walk. In summer time the children wore panama hats and tussore silk frocks discreetly adorned with drawn-thread work. Sometimes the Coleman child was accompanied by a young maid-servant in grey dress and black stockings. Sybil noted this one difference between her own entourage and the other girl’s. “Don’t turn round and stare,” whispered her mother.
It was not till she went to school that she found Désirée Coleman to be a year older than herself. Désirée was in a higher class but sometimes, when the whole school was assembled on the lawn or in the gym, Sybil would be, for a few moments, mistaken for Désirée. In the late warm spring the classes sat in separate groups under the plane trees until, as by simultaneous instinct, the teachers would indicate time for break. The groups would mingle, and “Sybil, dear, your shoelace,” a teacher might call out; and then, as Sybil regarded her neat-laced shoes, “Oh no, not Sybil, I mean Désirée.” In the percussion band Sybil banged her triangle triumphantly when the teacher declared, “Much better than yesterday, Sybil.” But she added, “I mean Désirée.”
Only the grown-ups mistook one child for another at odd moments. None of her small companions made this mistake. After the school concert Sybil’s mother said, “For a second I thought you were Désirée in the choir. It’s strange you are so alike. I’m not a bit like Mrs Coleman and your daddy doesn’t resemble him in the least.”
Sybil found Désirée unsatisfactory as a playmate. Sybil was precocious, her brain was like a blade. She had discovered that dull children were apt to be spiteful. Désirée would sit innocently cross-legged beside you at a party, watching the conjurer, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, jab at you viciously with her elbow.
By the time Sybil was eight and Désirée nine it was seldom that anyone, even strangers and new teachers, mixed them up. Sybil’s nose became more sharp and pronounced while Désirée’s seemed to sink into her plump cheeks like a painted-on nose. Only on a few occasions, and only on dark winter afternoons between the last of three o’clock daylight and the coming on of lights all over the school, was Sybil mistaken for Désirée.
Between Sybil’s ninth year and her tenth Désirée’s family came to live in her square. The residents’ children were taken to the gardens of the square after school by mothers and nurse-maids, and were bidden to play with each other nicely. Sybil regarded the intrusion of Désirée sulkily, and said she preferred her book. She cheered up, however, when a few weeks later the Dobell boys came to live in the square. The two Dobells had dusky-rose skins and fine dark eyes. It appeared the father was half Indian.
How Sybil adored the Dobells! They were a new type of playmate in her experience, so jumping and agile, and yet so gentle, so unusually courteous. Their dark skins were never dirty, a fact which Sybil obscurely approved. She did not then mind Désirée joining in their games; the Dobell boys were a kind of charm against despair, for they did not understand stupidity and so did not notice Désirée’s.
The girl lacked mental stamina, could not keep up an imaginative game for long, was shrill and apt to kick her playmates unaccountably and on the sly; the Dobells reacted to this with a simple resignation. Perhaps the lack of opposition was the reason that Désirée continually shot Sybil dead, contrary to the rules, whenever she felt like it.
Sybil resented with the utmost passion the repeated daily massacre of herself before the time was ripe. It was useless for Jon Dobell to explain, “Not yet, Désirée. Wait, wait, Désirée. She’s not to be shot down yet. She hasn’t crossed the bridge yet, and you can’t shoot her from there, anyway – there’s a big boulder between you and her. You have to creep round it, and Hugh has a shot at you first, and he thinks he’s got you, but only your hat. And …”
It was no use. Each day before the game started the four sat in conference on the short dry prickly grass. The proceedings were agreed. The game was on. “Got it all clear, Désirée?” “Yes,” she said, every day. Désirée shouted and got herself excited, she made foolish sounds even when supposed to be stalking the bandits through the silent forest. A few high screams and then, “Bang-bang,” she yelled, aiming at Sybil, “you’re dead.” Sybil obediently rolled over, protesting none the less that the game had only begun, while the Dobells sighed, “Oh, Désirée!”
Sybil vowed to herself each night, I will do the same to her. Next time – tomorrow if it isn’t raining – I will bang-bang her before she has a chance to hang her panama on the bough as a decoy. I will say bang-bang on her out of turn, and I will do her dead before her time.
But on no succeeding tomorrow did Sybil bring herself to do this. Her pride before the Dobells was more valuable than the success of the game. Instead, with her cleverness, Sybil set herself to avoid Désirée’s range for as long as possible. She dodged behind the laurels and threw out a running commentary as if to a mental defective, such as, “I’m in disguise, all in green, and no one can see me among the trees.” But still Désirée saw her. Désirée’s eyes insisted on penetrating solid mountains. “I’m half a mile away from everyone,” Sybil cried as Désirée’s gun swivelled relentlessly upon her.
I shall refuse to be dead, Sybil promised herself. I’ll break the rule. If it doesn’t count with her why should it count with me? I won’t roll over any more when she bangs you’re dead to me. Next time, tomorrow if it isn’t raining …
But Sybil simply did roll over. When Jon and Hugh Dobell called out to her that Désirée’s bang-bang did not count she started hopefully to resurrect herself; but “It does count, it does. That’s the rule,” Désirée counter-screeched. And Sybil dropped back flat, knowing utterly that this was final.
And so the girl continued to deal premature death to Sybil, losing her head, but never so much that she aimed at one of the boys. For some reason which Sybil did not consider until she was years and years older, it was always herself who had to die.
One day, when Désirée was late in arriving for play, Sybil put it to the boys that Désirée should be left out of the game in future. “She only spoils it.”
“But,” said Jon, “you need four people for the game.”
“You need four,” said Hugh.
“No, you can do it with three.” As she spoke she was inventing the game with three. She explained to them what was in her mind’s eye. But neither boy could grasp the idea, having got used to Bandits and Riders with two on each side. “I am the lone Rider, you see,” said Sybil. “Or,” she wheedled, “the
