CHAPTER I
It is said by many people who are supposed to "know things," that our
life is frequently, if not always, influenced by the first impressions
we ourselves receive of its value or worthlessness. Some folks,
presuming to be wiser even than the wisest, go so far as to affirm that
if you, while still an infant in long clothes, happen to take a disgust
at the manner and customs of your parents, you will inevitably be
disgusted at most events and persons throughout the remainder of your
earthly pilgrimage. If any truth exists in such a statement, then "Boy"
had excellent cause to be profoundly disappointed in his prospects at a
very early outset of his career. He sat in what is sometimes called a
"feeding-chair," wedged in by a bar which guarded him from falling
forward or tumbling out upon the floor, and the said bar was provided
with an ingenious piece of wood, which was partially hollowed out in
such wise as to keep him firm by his fat waist, as well as to provide a
resting-place for the plateful of bread-and-milk which he was enjoying
as much as circumstances would permit him to enjoy anything. Every now
and then he beat the plate solemnly with his spoon, as though
improvising a barbaric melody on a new sort of tom-tom,--and lifting a
pair of large, angelic blue eyes upwards, till their limpid light seemed
to meet and mix with the gold-glint of his tangled curls, he murmured
pathetically,--
"Oh, Poo Sing! Does 'oo feels ill? Does 'oo feels bad? Oh, Poo Sing!"
Now, "Poo Sing" was not a Japanese toy, or a doll, or a bird, or any
innocent object of a kind to attract a child's fancy; "Poo Sing" was
nothing but a Man, and a disreputable creature even at that "Poo Sing"
was Boy's father, and "Poo Sing" was for the moment--to put it quite
mildly--blind drunk. "Poo Sing" had taken his coat and waistcoat off,
and had pulled out the ends of his shirt in a graceful white festoon all
round the waistband of his trousers. "Poo Sing" had also apparently done
some hard combing to his hair, for the bulk of it stood somewhat up on
end, and a few grizzled and wiry locks strayed in disorderly fashion
across his inflamed nose and puffy eyelids, this effect emphasising the
already half-foolish, half-infuriated expression of his face. "Poo Sing"
staggered to and fro, his heavy body scarcely seeming to belong to his
uncertain legs, and between sundry attacks of hiccough, he trolled out
scraps of song, now high, now low, sometimes in a quavering falsetto,
sometimes in a threatening bass; while Boy listened to him wonderingly,
and regarded his divers antics over the bar of the "feeding-chair" with
serious compassion,--the dulcet murmur of, "Does 'oo feels bad? Poo
Sing!" recurring at intervals between mouthfuls of bread-and-milk and
the rhythmic beat of the spoon. They were a strangely assorted
couple,--Boy and "Poo Sing," albeit they were father and son. Boy, with
his fair round visage and bright halo of hair, looked more like a
child-angel than a mortal,--and "Poo Sing," in his then condition,
resembled no known beast upon earth, since no beast ever gets
voluntarily drunk, save Man. Yet it must not for a moment be imagined
that "Poo Sing" was not a gentleman. He was a gentleman,--most
distinctly,--most emphatically. He would have told you so himself, had
you presumed to doubt it, with any amount of oaths to press home the
fact. He would have spluttered at you somewhat in the following terms:--
"My father was a gentleman,--and my grandfather was a gentleman--and my
great-grandfather was a gentleman--and d----n you, sir, our people were
all gentlemen, every sanguinary man-jack of them, back to the twelfth
century! No tommy-rot with me! None of your mean, skulking,
money-grubbing Yankee millionaires in our lot! Why, you d----d
rascal! Call me a gentleman!--I should pretty much think so! I am a
D'Arcy-Muir,--and I have the blood of kings in my veins--d----n you!"
Gentleman! Of course he was a gentleman! His language proved it. And his
language was the first lesson in English Boy received, though he was not
aware of its full significance. So that when two or three years later on
Boy cried out "D----n rascal papa!" quite suddenly and vociferously, he
had no consciousness of saying anything that was not the height of
filial tenderness and politeness. To be a D'Arcy-Muir, meant to be the
descendant of a long line of knights and noblemen who had once upon a
time possessed huge castles with deep dungeons, where serfs and close
kindred could be conveniently imprisoned and murdered at leisure without
distinction as to character or quality;--knights and noblemen who some
generations onward were transformed into "six-bottle-men" who thought it
seemly to roll under their dining-tables dead drunk every evening, and
who, having merged themselves and their "blue blood" into this present
nineteenth-century Captain the Honourable James D'Arcy-Muir, the father
of Boy,--were, we must suppose, in their condition of departed spirits,
perfectly satisfied that they had bestowed a blessing upon the world by
the careful production of such a "gentleman" and Christian.
Captain the Honourable, mindful of his race and breeding, took care to
marry a lady,--whose ancestry was only just in a slight degree lower
than his own. She could not trace her lineage back to the twelfth
century, still she came of what is sometimes called a good old stock,
and she was handsome enough as a girl, though always large, lazy and
unintelligent. Indolence was her chief characteristic;--she hated any
sort of trouble. She only washed herself under protest, as a sort of
concession to the civilisation of the day. She had been gifted with an
abundance of beautiful hair, of a somewhat coarse texture, yet rich in
colour and naturally curly,--it was "a nuisance," she averred,--and as
soon as she married, she cut it short "to save the bother of doing it in
the morning" as she herself stated. Until she had secured a husband, she
had complied sufficiently with the rules of society to keep herself
tidily dressed;--but both before and after her boy was born, she easily
relapsed into the slovenly condition which she considered "comfort," and
which was her habitual nature. Truth to tell, she had no incentive or
ambition to appear at her best. She had not been married to Captain the
Honourable D'Arcy-Muir one week before she discovered his partiality for
strong drink, and being far too lymphatic to urge resistance, she sank
into a state of passive resignation to circumstances. What was the good
of a pretty "toilette"? Her husband never noticed how she
dressed,--whether she wore satin or sackcloth was a matter of equal
indifference to him,--so, finding that a short skirt and loose-fitting
blouse formed a comfortable sort of "get-about" costume, she adopted
it, and stuck to it morning, noon, and night. Always inclined to
embonpoint, she managed to get extremely stout in a very short time;
and chancing to read in a journal an article on "hygiene," which
eloquently proved that corsets were harmful and really dangerous to
health, she decided to do without them. So that by the time Boy was four
years old, Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, in her continual study of personal ease,
had developed a loose, floppy sort of figure, which the easy fitting
blouse covered, but did not disguise;--to save all possibility of corns
she encased her somewhat large feet in soft felt slippers,--swept the
short hair from off her brows, did without collars and cuffs, and
"managed" her small house in Hereford Square in her own fashion, which
"managing" meant having everything at sixes and sevens,--meals served at
all hours,--and a general preparation for the gradual destruction of
Boy's digestion by giving him his bread-and-milk and other nourishment
at moments when he least expected it.
Thus, it may be conceded by those who know anything about married life
and housekeeping, that Boy began his career among curious surroundings.
From his "feeding-chair" he saw strange sights,--sights which often
puzzled him, and caused him to beat monotonous time on his plate with
his baton-spoon in order to distract his little brain. Two large looming
figures occupied his horizon--"Muzzy" and "Poo Sing." "Muzzy" was the
easy-going stout lady with the felt slippers, who gave him his
bread-and-milk and said he was her boy,--"Poo Sing" was, in the few
tranquil moments of his existence, understood to be "Dads" or "Papa."
Boy somehow could never call him either "Dads" or "Papa" when he was
seized by his staggering fits; such terms were not sufficiently
compassionate for an unfortunate gentleman who was subject to a malady
which would not allow him to keep steady on his feet without clutching
at the sideboard or the mantelpiece. Boy had been told by "Muzzy" that
when "Papa" rolled about the room he was "very ill,"--and the most
eloquent language could not fittingly describe the innocent and tender
emotions of pity in Boy's mind when he beheld the progenitor of his
being thus cruelly afflicted! Were it possible to touch a drunkard's
heart in the mid career of his drunkenness, then the gentle murmur of
"Poo Sing!" from the fresh rosy lips of a little child, and that child
his own son, might have moved to a sense of uneasy shame and remorse the
particularly tough and fibrous nature of Captain the Honourable
D'Arcy-Muir. But Captain the Honourable was of that ancient and noble
birth which may be seen asserting itself in rowdy theatre-parties at
restaurants in Piccadilly,--and he, with the rest of his distinguished
set, said openly "D----n sentiment!" As for any sacredness in the life
of a child, or any idea of grave responsibility resting upon him as a
father, for that child's future, such primitive notions never occurred
to him. Sometimes when Boy stared at him very persistently with solemnly
enquiring grave blue eyes, he would become suddenly and violently
irritated, and would demand, "What is the little beggar staring at?
Looks like a d----d idiot!"
Then pouring more whisky out of the ever-present bottle into the
ever-present glass, he would yell to his wife, "See here, old
woman! This child is going to be an infernal idiot! A regular
water-on-the-brain, knock-down idiot! Staring at me for all the world as
if I were a gorilla! He's over-fed,--that's what's the matter! Guzzling
on bread-and-milk till he can't get a drop more down. Never saw such a
d----d little pig in all my d----d life!"
Thus would this gentleman of irreproachable descent bawl forth, the
while Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, provokingly passive, irritatingly flabby, and
indolently inert, preserved a discreet silence. Such behaviour on her
husband's part was of daily occurrence,--"She knew James's little ways,"
she would remark to any sympathising friends who chanced to discourse
with her on the delicate and honeyed bliss of her matrimonial life. "Why
did you marry him?" was the question often asked of her, whereat she
would answer betwixt a sigh and a yawn,--"Really I don't know! He seemed
quite as decent as most men, and he belongs to a splendid family!" "Did
you ever love him?" was another query once put to her by a daring
interlocutor inclined rather to romance than reality. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir
looked politely surprised.
"Love! Oh, I don't think that had very much to do with it," she said.
"One doesn't think about love after one is fifteen or sixteen. That's
all goosey-goosey-gander, you know!"
And a placid smile of superior wisdom lit up her fat face as she thus
clinched the would-be heart-searching enquiries of the mere
sentimentalist. Because, after all, as she argued, if Jim would get
drunk it was no use attempting to thwart him,--he was master of himself
and of his own actions. When, after a good heavy bout of it, he was laid
up in bed with a galloping pulse, throbbing veins, parched tongue, and a
half-crazed brain, that also was no business of hers. She had made no
attempt to either restrain or guide him, because she knew it was no use
trying to do either. If he did not drink in the house, he would drink
outside the house;--if he did not drink openly, he would drink on the
sly,--few men ever took a woman's advice for their good, though they
would take all women's recommendations to the bad. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir was
perfectly aware of this peculiar code of man's morals, as also of the
strange limitations of man's logic, and knowing these things was content
to make herself as bodily comfortable as she could, and let other
matters go as an untoward fate ordained. Thus it happened that it was
only Boy who really thought at all seriously concerning the puzzle of
existence. Boy, whose proper Christian name was Robert, seemed nearly
always preoccupied about something or other. Judging by the generally
wistful expression of his small features, it might be presumed that he
had memories. Probably most children have, though they are incapable of
expressing them. The enormous gulf of difference between the very young
and their elders, exists not only on account of the disparity in
years,--but also because the elders have retained, for the most part,
nothing more on their minds than the quickly crowding and vanishing
impressions of this present world,--while the children are, we may
imagine, busy with vague recollections of something better than the
immediate condition of things,--recollections which occasionally move
them to wonder why their surroundings have become so suddenly and
strangely altered. It is impossible not to see, in the eyes of many of
these little human creatures, a look of infinite perplexity, sorrow and
enquiry,--a look which gradually fades away as they grow older and more
accustomed to the ordinary commonplace business of natural existence,
while the delicate and dim memories of the Soul in a former state wax
faint and indistinct, never to recur again, perhaps, till death
re-flashes them on the interior sight with the repeated and everlasting
assurance that "here is not our rest." Boy had thoughts of the past,
though none of the future;--he was quite sure that all was not formerly
as it appeared to him now,--that there was a time, set far away among
rainbow eternities, when "Muzzy" and "Poo Sing" were non est,--when
indeed "Muzzy" and "Poo Sing" would have seemed the wildest incoherences
and maddest impossibilities. How it had chanced that the rainbow
eternities had dispersed for awhile,--had rolled back as it were into
space, and had allowed the strange spectacle of "Muzzy" and "Poo Sing"
to intervene, was more than Boy could explain, consciously or
unconsciously. But he was certain he had not always known these two now
apparently necessary personages,--and he was equally certain he had
known some sort of beings infinitely more interesting than they could
ever be. Fully impressed by this inward conviction, he often dwelt upon
it in his own mind,--and this it was that gave him the lovely far-away
look in his dreamy blue eyes,--the tender little quivering smile on his
rosy mouth, and the whole serene and wise expression of his fair and
chubby countenance. Scarcely four years old as he was, it was evident
that he had the intuition of some truer life than those around him
dreamed of,--the halo of divine things was still about him,--the "God's
image" was just freshly stamped on the bright new coin of his
being,--and it remained for the coming years to witness how long the
brightness would last in the hands of the untrustworthy individuals who
had it in possession. For it is a dangerous fallacy to aver that every
man has the making of his destiny in his own hands: to a certain extent
he has, no doubt, and with education and firm resolve, he can do much to
keep down the Beast and develop the Angel,--but a terrific
responsibility rests upon those often voluntarily reckless beings, his
parents, who, without taking thought, use the God's privilege of giving
life, while utterly failing to perceive the means offered to them for
developing and preserving that life under the wisest and most harmonious
conditions. It is certainly true that many parents do what they call
their "best" for their children,--that is, they work for them, and
educate them, and "place" them advantageously, as they think, in
life,--but they are apt to forget that this "life" they set store by, is
not only a question of food, clothing, money, and position,--its central
pivot is Thought,--and thought begins with the first brain-pulsations.
There is no use or sense in denying the fact,--it is so. Therefore the
progenitors of those living thought-cells cannot possibly shirk the
moral obligation which they take upon themselves from the very moment of
a child's birth. "The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the
children" is often quoted as a merciless axiom,--but it is merely the
declaration of a natural law, which, if broken, brings punishment in its
train.
Boy, lately arrived from the Infinite, was guiltless of his present
dubious surroundings. He did not make his "honourable" father a
drunkard, or his mother a sloven. He came into the world designed,
perchance, to be the redemption of both his parents, had they received
his innocent presence in that spirit. But they did not. They accepted
him as a natural result of marriage, and took no more heed of him than a
pair of monkeys casually observant of their first offspring. They, by
virtue of the evolution theory, should, as human beings, have been on a
scale higher than the Simian ancestor,--but Captain D'Arcy-Muir was not
even on a par with that hairy personage, inasmuch as the bygone
aboriginal monkey, not being aware of strong drink, could not degrade
himself that way. As long as Boy was fed, clothed, taken out, and put to
bed regularly, "Muzzy" and "Poo Sing" considered they were doing all
their necessary duty by him. "Muzzy" would indeed have been profoundly
astonished if she had known that Boy took her clothing into his
consideration, and wondered why hooks were often off, and buttons often
gone from her garments, and why her hair was so like some of the
stuffing of the old arm-chair,--woolly sort of stuffing, which was
coming through the leather for want of mending. Boy used to compare
"Muzzy" with another lady who sometimes came to visit him,--Miss Letitia
Leslie,--a wonderful vision to Boy's admiring eyes,--a rustling,
glistening dream, made up of soft dove-coloured silk and violet-scented
old lace, and tender, calm blue eyes, and small hands with big diamonds
flashing on their dainty whiteness,--"Miss Letty," as she was generally
called, and "that purse-proud old maid," as Captain the Honourable
frequently designated her. Boy had his own title for her,--it was
"Kiss-Letty," instead of "Miss Letty,"--and he would often ask, in dull
moments when the numerous perplexities of his small mind became too
entangled for him to bear--"Where is Kiss-Letty? Me wants Kiss-Letty!
Kiss-Letty loves Boy,--Boy loves Kiss-Letty!"
And to hear him sweetly meandering along in this fashion, the
uninitiated stranger might have imagined "Kiss-Letty" to be a kind of
fairy,--an elf, born of moonlight and lilies, rather than what she
really was, a spinster of forty-five, who made no pretences to be a whit
younger than she was,--a spinster who was perfectly content to wear her
own beautiful grey hair, and to wish for no "touching up" on the
delicate worn pallor of her cheeks--a spinster, moreover, who was proud
of her spinsterhood, as it was the sign of her unbroken fidelity to a
dead man who had loved her. Miss Letitia Leslie had had her history, her
own private tragedy of tears and heart-break; but the depths of sorrow
in her soul had turned to sweetness instead of sourness,--her own grief
had taught her to be compassionate of all griefs, and the unkind sword
of fate that had pierced her gentle breast rendered her delicately
cautious of ever wounding, by so much as a word or a look, the
sensitive feelings of others. Death and circumstance had made her the
independent mistress of a large fortune, which she used lavishly for the
private doing of good where evil abounded. Into the foul and festering
slums of the great city--into the shabby dwellings of poorly paid clerks
and half-starved curates,--up among the barely furnished attics where
struggling artists worked for scanty livelihood and the distant hope of
fame, "Kiss-Letty" took her sweet and gracious presence, wearing a smile
that was a very good reflex of God's sunshine, and speaking comfort in a
voice as tender as that of any imagined angel bringing God's messages.
Much of the grinding of the ceaseless wheel of tribulation did Miss
Letitia see, as she went to and fro on her various errands of mercy and
friendship; but perhaps among all the haunts and homes where her
personality was familiar, her interest had seldom been more strongly
aroused than in the ill-ordered household in Hereford Square, where
Captain the Honourable D'Arcy-Muir drank and swore, and his wife
"slovened" the hours away in muddle and misanthropy. For here was
Boy,--Boy, a soft, smiling morsel of helpless life and innocent
expectancy,--Boy, who stretched out plump mottled arms to "Kiss-Letty,"
and said, chucklingly, "Ullo!"--(an exclamation he had picked up from
the friendly policeman at the corner of the square, who greeted him thus
when he went out in his perambulator)--"Ullo! 'Ows 'oo, Kiss-Letty?
Wants Boy out! Kiss-Letty take Boy wiz her walk-talk."
Which observation, rendered into heavier English, implied that Boy
politely enquired after Miss Letitia's health, and desired to go out
walking and likewise talking with that lady.
And no one in all the world responded more promptly or more lovingly to
Boy's delightful amenities than Miss Letitia did. The wisely-sweet
expression of the child's face fascinated her,--she saw in Boy the
possibilities of noble manhood, graced perhaps by the rarest gifts of
genius. Believers in hereditary development would have asked her how she
could imagine it possible for a child born of such parents to possess an
ideal or exceptionally endowed nature? To which she would have replied
that she did not believe in the heritage so much as the environment of
life. Here she was partly wrong and partly right. Such inexplicable
things happen in the evolution of one particular human being from a
whole chain of other human beings that it is impossible to gauge
correctly the result of the whole. Why, for example, the poet Keats
should have had such indifferent parentage will always be somewhat of a
mystery. And why men, lineally descended from "ancient, noble and
honourable" families should, in this day, have degenerated into
turf-gamblers, drunkards and social rascals generally, is also a
bewildering conundrum. In the case of Keats, birth and environment were
against him,--in the case of the modern aristocrat birth and environment
are with him. The one has become an English classic; the other is an
English disgrace. Who shall clear up the darkness surrounding the
working of this law? Miss Letitia made no attempt to penetrate such
physiological obscurities,--she simply argued that for Boy to be brought
up in a "muddle," and set face to face with the ever-present
whisky-bottle, was decidedly injurious to his future prospects. The
D'Arcy-Muirs were poor, though they had "expectations,"--she, Miss
Letitia, was rich. She had no relatives,--no one in the world had the
least claim upon her,--and she had serious thoughts of adopting Boy.
Would his parents part with him? That was a knotty point, a delicate and
very doubtful question. But she had considered it for some time
carefully, and had come to the reasonable conclusion that, as Boy seemed
to be rather in the way of his father and mother than otherwise, and
that moreover, as her terms of adoption were inclusive of making him her
sole heir, it was probable she might gain the victory. And the very day
on which this true narrative begins, when Captain the Honourable was
executing his whisky war-dance to the accompaniment of his son's
murmured "Poo Sing!" and rhythmic spoon-tapping, was the one selected by
the gentle lady to commence operations, or, as she put it, "to break the
proposition gradually" to the strange parents whose daily lives
furnished such a singular example of wedded felicity to their observant
offspring. When her dainty brougham, drawn by its sleek and spirited
roans, drew up at the door of the house in Hereford Square, there were
various signs even outside that habitation to fill the order-loving
spirit of Miss Letitia with doubtful qualms and hesitations. To begin
with, there was not a blind in any of the windows that was drawn up
straight; they were all awry. This gave the dwelling a generally
squinting, leering, look which was not pleasant. Then again, the
doorsteps were dirty. There were strange, smeary pieces of paper
floating down the area, in grimy companionship with broken bits of
straw. The bell-handle hung out of its socket, somewhat like an eye
undergoing the latest surgical operation for cataract. There were recent
traces of coal on the pavement,--a ton had evidently just been shot down
the "hole-into-the-cellar" arrangement which some brilliant British
"bright idea" has invented for the greater accumulation of dirt in the
streets; and the coal-men had not troubled to "clean up" after the
performance. Miss Letitia, stepping lightly out of her carriage, was
compelled to crunch the heels of her pretty little brodequins in
coal-dust, and soil the delicate edge of her frilled silk petticoat in
the same. Cautiously she handled the helpless-looking bell-pull, with
the result that a hollow tinkling sound awakened the interior echoes.
The door opened, and a slatternly maid-servant appeared.
"Is Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir----?"
"Yes, 'm, at home to you, 'm, of course, 'm. But she's hout to most, on
account of master's bein' orful bad. Orful bad he is. Step in, please
'm."
Whereupon Miss Letitia "stepped in," asking pleasantly as she did so,--
"And how is dear Boy?"
"Oh, jes' the same, 'm! Allus smilin' an' comfoble-like. Never see such
a child for good temper. Seems allus a-thinkin' pretty. This way, 'm!"
And she escorted her visitor into a small side-room which Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir called her "boudoir,"--announcing briskly,--
"Miss Leslie, 'm!"
"Dear me!" and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, clad in the usual short skirt and
ill-fitting blouse, rose to receive the in-coming guest.
"How nice of you, Letitia, to come! So early too! I'm afraid luncheon
has been cleared--"
"Pray don't speak of it," interrupted Miss Leslie--"of course at four
o'clock----"
"Is it four? Dear me!" and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir smiled sleepily. "Why, then
it's time for tea. You will have some tea?"
"Thank you!" murmured Miss Letty, "but don't put yourself out in any
way. Is Boy----?"
"Quite well? Oh yes!" and Boy's mother rang the bell as she spoke. "Boy
is in the dining-room with his father. He has just had his
bread-and-milk. I have left him there because I think he keeps Jim a
little bit in order. Jim is really quite impossible to-day,--but of
course he wouldn't hurt the child."
"Do you mean," said Miss Letitia, her cheeks growing paler, "that your
husband is ... well!--you know! And that Boy is with him while in that
terrible condition?"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir laughed.
"Of course! How horrified you look, Letitia! But you have no idea how
useful Boy is in that way. He really saves pounds' worth of furniture.
When Boy is strapped in his chair, and Jim is on the booze, Jim never
knocks the things about as he would if he were alone,--because you see
he is afraid of upsetting Boy. It is not out of kindness to Boy exactly,
but simply because he hates to hear a child yell. It gets on his nerves.
Then of course Boy thinks his father is ill, and pities him so much that
the two get on together capitally."
And this lymphatic lump of a woman laughed again, the while Miss Letitia
gazed blankly at the fireplace and endeavoured to control her indignant
feelings. The maidservant came in just then in answer to the bell.
"Bring the tea, Gerty,"--commanded her mistress with quite a grand air,
as one who should say "bid the thousand menials in the outer court of
the castle serve me with delicacies on their bended knees."
Gerty had a severe cold, and sniffed violently and unbecomingly.
"Please 'm, the milkman ain't been yet. This mornin' he said as he might
be late, as there was a family t'other side of the square as liked their
meals punctual, and he guessed he'd have to go that side first instead
of ours. And there ain't none left from the mornin'; Master Boy's 'ad it
all."
"Dear, sweet, greedy little pig!" smiled Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir affably.
"Well, you can bring the teacups and the teapot, and the kettle and the
bread-and-butter--and--Oh! there is condensed milk, I know: will you
have condensed milk, Letitia?"
Miss Letitia responded somewhat primly,--
"No, certainly not!" Then, regretting her rather sharp tone of voice,
she added, "You must not think me fanciful, but I cannot bear condensed
milk in my tea. You know I come of an old Devonshire family, and I
believe I grew up on genuine milk and genuine cream."
"Oh, but condensed milk is quite genuine!" said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir. "I
love it! I eat it on bread-and-butter often instead of jam; you must
not have old maids' prejudices, Letitia!" And she smiled the provoking
smile of a superior being who knows all the best things of life without
teaching or experience.
Miss Letty sat patiently under the verdict of "old maids' prejudices,"
wondering how on earth she was going to broach the subject which was
uppermost in her mind to this woman who seemed for the moment to have
absorbed all the intellect of which she was capable into the bland
consideration of condensed milk. She started the conversation again
hesitatingly.
"Is Captain D'Arcy-Muir likely to go out presently, do you think?"
"I'm sure I couldn't say," replied Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, still smiling. "You
see he can scarcely stand--he won't dress himself properly--and he has
just taken to singing: listen!" And she held up a fat forefinger to
invite attention. Miss Letitia had no need to strain her ears for the
extraordinary sounds which came fitfully through the door,--sounds
between a cough and a yell, wherewith were intermingled the familiar
words--
"Ole King Co--ole
Was a jo--olly old so--ul!"
"Pray, pray!" implored Miss Letty nervously,--"do get Boy out of that
room! Really, my dear, it isn't fit for the child. I beg of you!
I--I--should like to see Boy!"
"Well, I can't go and fetch him," declared Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir with a
deeply-injured expression; "I should only get pushed out of the room, or
hit in the eye, if I attempted it when Jim is like this. But I'll send
Gerty."
And as Gerty just then entered with all the necessities for tea, minus
the milk, she added,
"Fetch Master Boy in here, will you?"
"Yes, 'm. If he'll come with me."
She disappeared to fulfil her mission.
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir sank back into the depths of her easy-chair with the
manner of one who has done every duty that could possibly be expected of
her. Miss Letitia clasped and unclasped her neatly gloved hands
nervously. The noises of mingled coughing and yelling increased in
ferocity,--and soon they were broken by two widely differing sounds,--a
drunken curse, and a child's laughter.
"D----n you, get out of this!"
"Kiss-Letty! Ooo--ee! My kissy-kissy Kiss-Letty!"
And escaping from Gerty's hand, Boy literally danced into the room.
CHAPTER II
Making straight for Miss Letitia, the jumping bundle of dimples, gold
curls, short knickers and waggling pinafore, came with a wild bound into
that lady's arms.
"Oo-ee!" he once more exclaimed--"Vi'lets!"
And, discovering a bunch of those sweet blossoms half-hidden in the
folds of Miss Leslie's soft lace necktie, he burrowed his little nose
into them with delighted eagerness,--then looking up again, and smiling
angelically, he repeated in a dulcet murmur, "'Es! Vi'lets! Oo' is
vezy sweet, zoo Kiss-Letty!"
Miss Letitia pressed him to her breast, patted him, smoothed his tousled
locks, and took off his loosely-hanging pinafore, thereby disclosing his
whole chubby form, clad in what city tailors euphoniously term a 'small
gent's Jack Tar.'
"Well, Boy!" she said, her gentle voice trembling with quite a delicious
cooing sweetness--"how are you to-day?"
"Me vezy well," answered Boy placidly, twining round his dumpy fingers a
long delicately-linked gold chain which 'Kiss-Letty' always wore--"Vezy
well 'sank 'oo!" (this with a big sigh). "Me awfoo' bozzered" (bothered)
"'bout Dads! Poo Sing! Vezy--vezy ill!"
And Boy conveyed such a heartrending expression of deep distress into
his beautiful blue eyes, that Miss Letitia was quite touched, and was
almost persuaded into a sense of pity for the degraded creature who was
"putting a thief into his mouth to steal away his brains," in the
opposite room.
"You see, Letitia," murmured Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir with a fat complacent
smile--"You see just how Boy takes it? He and his father are the most
perfect friends in the world!"
Good Miss Leslie looked as she felt,--pained and puzzled. How was she to
broach the idea she had of adopting Boy, if he was already considered by
his stupid mother to be a sort of stop-gap or "buffer" between herself
and the drunken rages of her "honourable" lord and master? She resolved
to temporize.
"I have been wondering," she began gently, as she settled the little
fellow more comfortably on her lap "whether you would let Boy come and
stay with me for a few days----"
"Stay with you!" exclaimed Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir--and so surprised was she
that she actually lifted her bulky form an inch or two out of its sunken
attitude in the arm-chair--"With you, Letitia? A child like that?
Why, you would not know in the least what to do with him!"
"I think I should," submitted Miss Letty, with a little
smile,--"Besides, of course you could send Gerty with him if you liked.
But I do not think it would be necessary. I have an excellent maid who
is devoted to children;--and then he could have a large room to play
about in--and----"
"Oh, it would never do!--never--never!" declared Boy's mother, shaking
her head with a half-reproachful, half-compassionate air. "You see, my
dear Letitia, it is not as if you were married and had children of your
own. You wouldn't understand how to manage Boy a bit."
"You think not?" said Miss Letty patiently. "Well--perhaps I might be a
little ignorant--but would you let me try?"
"I could not--I really could not!" and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir smoothed her
floppy blouse over her massive bosom with a protective pat of her large
hand. "Boy would simply break his heart without me. Wouldn't you, Boy?"
Boy thus adjured, looked round enquiringly. He had been busy arranging
"Kiss-Letty's" gold chain in loops and twists, such as pleased his
fancy, and thus employed, had failed to follow the conversation.
"How wouldn't Boy?" he demanded.
"Boy wouldn't like to leave Muzzy," explained Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir
unctuously--"would he?"
Boy was still meditatively concerned with the looping of the gold chain.
"Leave Muzzy?" he queried. "Wha' for?"
"What for?" echoed his mother. "To go with Miss Letty--all by your own
self--and no kind good Muzzy to take care of you!"
Boy stopped twisting the gold chain. Things began to look serious. He
put one rosy finger into his rosier mouth, and started to consider the
question. "No kind good Muzzy to take care of you." Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir was
her own trumpeter on this occasion. That she was a "kind good Muzzy" was
entirely her own idea. If Boy had been able to express himself with
thorough lucidity, he would most probably have given the palm for
"kindness and goodness," and "taking care of him," to the servant Gerty,
rather than to Muzzy. But his little heart told him he ought to love his
Muzzy best of all--and yet--how about "Kiss-Letty"? He hesitated.
"Me loves Muzzy vezy much," he murmured, lowering his pretty
eyes,--while his sensitive little underlip began to quiver--"But me
loves Kiss-Letty too. Me would like out wiz Kiss-Letty!"
And having thus taken courage to declare his true sentiments, he felt
more independent, and raised his golden head with a curious little air
of defiance and appeal intermingled. Just then a diversion occurred in
the entrance of the servant Gerty, carrying a jug.
"Oh, here is the milk at last!" said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, with a sigh of
relief. "Now we can have tea. Gerty, what do you think?--here is Miss
Leslie wanting to take Boy to stay with her for a few days! Did ever you
hear of such a thing!"
Gerty sniffed her usual sniff, which as she gave it, almost amounted to
an enigma.
"I should let him go, 'm, if I were you, 'm," she said, whereat Miss
Letty could have embraced her. "He ain't doin' no good 'ere, with the
master on in his tearin' tantrums an' swillin' whisky fit to bust
hisself, an' really there's no tellin' what might happen. Oh yes, 'm,--I
should let him go, 'm!"
"Would you really?" and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir rose and lolled herself lazily
along to the tea-table--"Well!--Do you want him to-day, Letitia?"
"Why, yes, I can take him at once," replied Miss Leslie, quite trembling
with excitement, and commending Gerty to all the special favours of
providence for the evident influence she exerted on the flabby mind of
her mistress--"Nothing will please me better."
"Such a funny notion of yours!" smiled Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, hovering over
the tea-things like a sort of large loosely-feathered bird. "You are
such a regular old maid, Letitia, that I should have thought you
wouldn't have had a child messing about in your beautiful house for the
world. However, if you really want him, take him,--but you must have him
alone--I can't spare Gerty."
Gerty smiled broadly.
"Oh, Miss Leslie won't want me, 'm," she cheerfully declared. "Master
Boy don't give no trouble. Shall I put his clothes together, 'm? He
ain't got nothing but his white flannel sailor-suit and two little
shirts and nightgowns."
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir sighed wearily.
"Oh dear, don't bother me about such things!" she said. "Just make a
brown-paper parcel of what you think the child will want for a week, and
put it in Miss Leslie's brougham. You came in your brougham, Letitia? Of
course. Yes. That will be all right. Put it all in the brougham, Gerty."
"Yes, 'm. Shall I bring in Master Boy's hat and overcoat in here?"
"Certainly. Dear me, what a fuss!" Here Gerty promptly left the room.
"One would think the child was going to the wilds of Africa! Do you take
sugar, Letitia? Yes? Ah, you are not inclined to be at all stout, are
you?"--this with a somewhat envious glance at Miss Leslie's still
perfectly graceful and svelte figure--"No, I should think you must be
nearly all skin and bone. Now, I can never take sugar. I put on flesh
directly. Here is your tea. Boy, do you want any more milk?"
Boy had, during the past few minutes, remained in a condition of bland
staring. Vague notions that his "wanting out" with Kiss-Letty was going
to be a granted and accomplished fact, pleased his little brain, but he
had no skill to discourse on his sensations, even in broken language. He
was however too happy to require any extra feeding. He therefore
declined the offer of 'more milk' with a negative shake of his gold
curls, and after a little further consideration, clambered off Miss
Letitia's knee and went to his mother.
"Me goin' out wiz Kiss-Letty?" he inquired with a solemn air.
"Yes. You are going to stay with her in her grand big house, away from
poor Muzzy"--replied the 'poor Muzzy' in question, taking a large
mouthful of bread-and-butter and swallowing it down with a gulp of tea.
"And I hope you'll be a good boy."
"'Ope me be a goo' boy!" he echoed thoughtfully. "'Ess! Me tell Dads?"
Miss Letitia looked startled,--Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir smiled.
"No. You had better not tell Dads. He is ill, you know. When you come
back he will be quite well."
"Sink so?" queried Boy dubiously.
"Think so? Of course I think so. Now don't stand staring there. Here's
your picture-book,--look at that till Gerty brings you your hat and
coat."
Boy took the interesting volume offered him, docilely, but without
enthusiasm. He knew it well. Its torn covers,--the impossible beasts and
birds depicted within it,--the extraordinary jumble of rhymes which
Gerty would read to him at odd moments, and which he would afterwards
think about in pained silence,--all these things worried him. There was
a large and elaborately ornamented B in the book, and--twisted in and
out its curly formation--were two designs which were utterly opposed to
each other,--a cricket-bat and a bumble-bee. The 'poetry' accompanying
it said--
Fetch me the BAT
To kill the RAT.
After this ferocious couplet came the flamboyant coloured drawing of a
large yellow flower, unlike any flower ever born in any field of the
wide world. The yellow flower being duly considered as a growth of
distinct individuality, other two lines appeared--
Look here and see
The BUMBLE-BEE.
This particular page of his "picture-book" had often puzzled Boy. When
Gerty had first read to him--
Fetch me the BAT
To kill the RAT,
he had at once asked,--
"Where rat?"
Gerty had sought everywhere all over the ornate capital letter and the
other designs on the page for the missing animal,--but in vain.
Therefore she had been reluctantly compelled to admit the depressing
truth,--
"There ain't no rat, Master Boy dear!"
"Why no rat?" pursued Boy, solemnly.
Driven to desperation, a bright idea suddenly crossed Gerty's brain.
"I 'xpect it's cos it's killed," she said,--"See, Master Boy! It's 'a
bat to kill a rat.' And the rat's killed!"
"Poo' rat!" commented Boy thoughtfully--"Gone! Poo'--Poo' rat!--gone
altogezzer!"
He sighed,--and refused to 'look here and see, the Bumble-bee.' He
really wished to know who it was that had asked for a bat to kill a
rat, and why that unknown individual had been so furiously inclined.
But he kept these desires to himself; for he had an instinctive sense
that though Gerty was all kindness, she was not quite the person to be
trusted with his closest confidences.
Just now he went into a corner, picture-book in hand, and sat, watching
his 'Muzzy' and 'Kiss-Letty' taking tea together. Muzzy's back was
towards him, and he could not help wondering why it was so big and
broad? Why it was so difficult to get round Muzzy for example? He had
no such trouble with Kiss-Letty. She was so slim and yet so strong,--and
once, when she had lifted him up and carried him from one room to the
other, he felt as though he were 'throned light in air,' so easy and
graceful had been the way she bore him. Now Muzzy always took hold of
him as if he were a lump. Not that he argued this fact at all in his
little mind,--he was simply thinking--thinking,--yes, if the sober
truth must be told, he was thinking quite sadly and seriously how it
happened that Muzzy was ugly and Kiss-Letty pretty! It was such a pity
Muzzy was ugly!--for surely it was ugly to have red blotches on the
face, and hair like the arm-chair stuffing? Such a pity--such a pity for
Muzzy? Such a pity too for Boy! Ah, and such a pity it is for all idle,
slovenly women who "let themselves go" and think their children 'take no
notice' of indolence, dirt, and discordant colours. The sense of beauty
and fitness was very strong in Boy. Where he got it was a mystery,--it
was certainly not a heritage derived from either of his parents. He did
not know that 'Kiss-Letty' was many years older than 'Muzzy,'--but he
did know that she was ever so much more charming and agreeable to look
at. He judged by appearances,--and these were all in 'Kiss-Letty's'
favour. For in truth the elderly spinster looked a whole decade younger
than the more youthful married woman. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, though she took
life with such provokingly indifferent ease, 'wore' badly,--Miss Leslie,
despite many concealed sorrows and disappointments, wore well. Her face
was still rounded and soft-complexioned,--her eyes were bright and
clear,--while her figure was graceful and her dress choice and elegant.
Boy indeed thought 'Kiss-Letty' very beautiful, and he was not without
experience. Several well-known "society beauties" of the classed and
labelled sort, who are hawked about in newspaper 'fashionable' columns
as wearing blue or green, or "looking lovely in white," and "stately in
pink"--were wont to visit Captain the Honourable and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir on
their 'at-home' days, and Boy was always taken into the drawing-room to
see them,--but somehow they made no impression on him. They lacked
something--though he could not tell what that something was. None of
them had the smile of Kiss-Letty, or her soft dove-like glance of eye.
Peering at her now from his present corner Boy considered her a very
angel of loveliness. And he was actually going away with her, to her
'grand big house,' Muzzy said. Boy tried to think what the 'grand big
house' would be like. The nearest approach his imagination could make to
it was Aladdin's palace, as pictured in one of the 'fairy landscapes' of
a certain magic lantern which a very burly gentleman, a Major Desmond,
had brought to him at Christmas. Major Desmond was a large, jovial,
white-haired, white-moustached personage, with a rollicking mellow
laugh, and an immense hand which, whenever it was laid on Boy's head,
caressed his curls with the gentleness of a south wind touching the
petals of a flower. Muzzy's hand was hard and heavy indeed compared to
the hand of Major Desmond. Major Desmond was a friend of
Kiss-Letty's,--that was all Boy knew about him,--that and the
magic-lantern incident. Ruffling and crinkling up the pages of the
too-familiar 'picture book' mechanically, Boy went on with his own
little quaint sequence of thought,--till suddenly, just as Muzzy and
Kiss-Letty had finished their tea, a dull crash was heard in the
opposite room, accompanied by a loud oath--then came silence. Boy
trotted out of his corner, his little face pale with fright.
"Oh Poo' Sing!" he cried. "Dads ill!--Dads hurted! Me go to Dads!"
"No--no!" and Miss Letty hastened to him and caught him in her
arms--"No, dear! Wait a minute! Wait, darling! Let Mother see first what
is the matter."
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir had risen, and was about to open the door and make some
casual inquiry, when Gerty came in, somewhat pale but giggling.
"It's only master, 'm," she said. "His foot tripped, and down he fell.
He ain't hurt hisself. He don't even trouble to get up--he's just
a-sittin' on the floor with the whisky-bottle as comfoble as you
please!"
Miss Letty shuddered as she listened, and clasped Boy more warmly to her
heart, placing her gentle hands against his ears lest he should hear too
much.
"Papa's all right, Boy dear," she said.--"He has just let something fall
on the floor. See?"
"Zat all?" queried Boy with an anxious look.
"That's all. Now"--and Miss Letitia took his dumpy wee hand in her own
and led him across the room--"come along, and we'll have a nice drive
together, shall we? Gerty, have you got Master Boy's things?"
"Yes, 'm." And Gerty, flopping down on both knees in front of the little
fellow, pulled a miniature overcoat round his tiny form and stuck a
sailor-hat (marked 'Invincible' on the ribbon) jauntily on his
head--"There you are, Master Boy, dear! Ain't you grand, eh? Going away
visiting all by your own self! Quite like a big man!"
Boy smiled vaguely but sweetly, and turned one of the buttons on his
coat round and round meditatively. Quite like a big man, was he? Well,
he did not feel very big, but on the contrary particularly small--and
especially just now, because Muzzy was standing upright, looking down
upon him with a spacious air of infinite and overwhelming condescension.
Surely Muzzy was a very large woman?--might not one say extra large?
Boy stretched out his hand and grasped her skirt, gazing wistfully up at
the bulk above him,--the bulk which now stooped, like an over-full sack
of wheat toppling forward, to kiss him and bid him good-bye.
"Remember, you've never been away from me before, Boy,"--and 'Muzzy'
spoke in a kind of injured tone--"so I hope you will be good and
obedient, and keep your clothes clean. And when you get to Miss Leslie's
house, don't smear your fingers on the walls, and mind you don't break
anything. You know it won't be as it is here, where you can tumble
about as you like all day and play----"
"Oh, but he can!" interposed Miss Leslie hastily--"I assure you he
can!"
"Pardon me, Letitia, he can not"--and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir swelled visibly
with matronly obstinacy as she spoke--"It is not likely that in your
house you can have wooden soldiers all over the floor. It would be
impossible. Boy has very odd ways with his soldiers. He likes to 'camp
them out' in different spots of the pattern on the carpet--and of course
it does make a place untidy. When one is a mother, one does not mind
these things"--this with a superior and compassionate air--"but you,
with your precise notions of order, will find it very trying."
Miss Leslie protested, with a little smile, that really she had no
particularly 'precise' notions of order.
"Oh yes, you have," declared Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir emphatically--"Don't tell
me you haven't, Letitia,--all old maids are the same. Then there is that
dreadful Cow of Boy's,--the thing Major Desmond gave him, along with the
magic lantern,--he can do without the lantern, of course--but I really
am afraid he had better take his Cow!"
Miss Letitia laughed--and a very pretty, musical little laugh she had.
"Oh, by all means let us have the Cow!" she said gaily. "Where is it,
Boy?"
Boy looked up, then down,--to the east, to the west, and everywhere
into the air, without committing himself to a reply. Gerty came to the
rescue.
"I'll fetch it," she said briskly. "I saw it on Master Boy's bed a
minute ago."
She left the room, to return again directly with the interesting animal
in question--quite a respectably-sized toy cow with a movable head which
wagged up and down for a long time when set in motion by the touch of a
finger. It had a blue ribbon round its neck, and Boy called it 'Dunny.'
He welcomed it now as he saw it with the confiding smile of long and
experienced friendship.
"Ullo Dunny!" he said--"Wants out wiz Boy? Tum along zen!" And receiving
the pasteboard quadruped in his arms he embraced it with effusion.
"It is most absurd!" said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir grandiosely--"Still it would
be rather awkward for you, Letitia, if he were to start crying for his
Cow!"
"It would indeed!" and the laughter still lighted up Miss Letitia's soft
eyes with a keen and merry twinkle--"I would not be without the Cow for
worlds!"
Something in her voice or smile caused Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir to feel slightly
cross. There was an unmistakable air of youth about this "old maid"--a
sense of fun and a spirit of enjoyment which were not in 'Muzzy's'
composition. And 'Muzzy' straightway got an idea into her head that she
was "out of it," as it were,--that Miss Letitia, Boy and 'Dunny' all
understood each other in a manner which she could never grasp, and knew
the way to a fairy-land where she could never follow. And it was with a
touch of snappishness that she said,--
"Well!--if you are going, hadn't you better go? My husband will probably
be coming in here soon,--and he might perhaps make some objection to
Boy's leaving----"
"Oh, I won't run the risk of that!" answered Miss Leslie quickly.
"Come along, Boy!--say good-bye to Mother!"
Holding his 'Cow' with one hand to his breast, Boy raised his pretty
little face to be kissed again.
"Goo' bye, Muzzy dee-ar!" he murmured--"'Ope Dads better soon! Kiss Dads
for Boy!"
This was his parting message to the drunkard in the next room,--and
having uttered it, he drew a long breath as of one who prepares to
plunge into unknown seas, and resigned himself to 'Kiss-Letty,' who led
him gently along, accommodating her graceful swift step to his toddling
movements, through the hall and outside to her brougham, where the
footman in attendance, smiling broadly at the sight of Boy, lifted the
little fellow in, and seated him cosily on the soft cushions. Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir and the servant Gerty watched his departure from the house
door.
"I will take every care of him!" called Miss Letitia, as she followed
her small guest into her carriage--"Don't be at all anxious!"
She waved her hand,--the footman shut the door, and mounted the
box,--and in another minute the smart little equipage had turned the
corner of Hereford Square and disappeared. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir remained for
a few seconds on the steps of her house, airing herself largely, and
patronising with a casual glance the clear blue of the afternoon sky.
"What a vain old woman that Miss Leslie is!" she remarked to
Gerty--"Really she tries to pass herself off as about thirty!"
Gerty sniffed, as usual.
"Oh, I don't think so, 'm!" she said--"I don't think she tries to pass
herself off as anything, 'm! And I wouldn't never call her vain. She's
just the real lady, every inch of her, and of course she can't help
herself lookin' nice. And what a mercy it is for Master Boy to be took
away just now!--for I didn't like to mention it before, 'm, but I don't
know what we're goin' to do with the Cap'en,--he's goin' on worse than
ever,--an he's bin an' torn nearly every mossel of his clothes off,--an'
a puffeckly disgraceful sight he is, 'm, lyin' sprawled on the floor
a-playin' 'patience'!"
CHAPTER III
Miss Letitia's house, her "great big house," as Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir had
expansively described it to Boy, was situated on the sunniest side of
Hans Place. It was tastefully built, and all the window-ledges had
floral boxes delightfully arranged with flowers growing in pots and
hanging baskets, over which on warm bright days spacious
crimson-and-white awnings stretched forth their protective shade, giving
the house-front quite a gay and foreign effect. The door was white, and
a highly-polished brass knocker glinted in the sunshine with an almost
knowing wink, as much as to say--"Use me--And you shall
see--Hospitalitee!" When Miss Letty's brougham drove up, however, this
same knowing knocker was not called into requisition, for the butler had
heard the approaching wheels, and had seen the approaching trotting
roans through a little spy-window of his own in the hall, so that before
Miss Letty had stepped from the vehicle and had "jumped" her small
visitor out also, the door was opened and the butler himself stood, a
sedate figure of civil welcome on the threshold. Without betraying
himself by so much as a profane smile, this dignitary of the household
accepted the Cow and the brown paper parcel which constituted all Boy's
belongings. He took them, so to speak, to his manly bosom, and then,
waving away the carriage, coachman, footman and horses with a slight yet
stately gesture, he shut the house door and followed his "lady" and the
"young gentleman" through the hall into a room which beamed with light,
warmth and elegance,--Miss Letty's morning-room or boudoir--where, with
undisturbed serenity he set the Cow on the table between a cabinet
portrait of Mr. Balfour and a small bronze statuette of Mercury. The Cow
looked rather out of place there, but it did not matter.
"Will you take tea, Madam?" he asked, in a voice rendered mellifluous by
the constant and careful practice of domestic gentleness.
"No, thank you, Plimpton," replied Miss Letty cheerfully; "we have had
tea. Just ring the bell for Margaret, will you?"
Plimpton bowed, and withdrew, not forgetting to deposit the brown paper
parcel on a chair as he made his exit. Boy stood speechless, gazing
round him in a state of utter bewilderment, and only holding to any
sense of reality in things by keeping close to "Kiss-Letty," and for the
further relief of his mind glancing occasionally at the familiar
"Dunny," who presented the appearance of grazing luxuriously on an
embroidered velvet table-cloth. Instinctively aware of the little
fellow's sudden shyness and touch of fear, Miss Letty did not allow him
to remain long oppressed by his vague trouble. Kneeling down beside him,
she took off his hat, pulled him out of his tiny overcoat, and kissed
his little fat cheeks heartily.
"Now you are at home with Kiss-Letty," she said, smiling straight into
his big innocent blue eyes,--"aren't you?"
Boy's breath came and went quickly--his heart beat hard. He lifted one
dumpy hand and dubiously inserted a forefinger through the loops of Miss
Letty's ever-convenient neck-chain. Then he smiled with responsive
sweetness into the kind face so close to his own.
"'Ess," he murmured very softly, "Boy wiz Kiss-Letty! But me feels
awfoo' funny!"
Miss Letitia laughed and kissed him again.
"Feels awfoo' funny, do you?" she echoed. "Oh, but I feel just the same,
Boy! It's awfoo' funny for me to have you here all to myself, don't you
think so?"
Boy's smile broadened--he began to chuckle,--there was the glimmering
perception of a joke somewhere in his brain. Just at that moment a
comfortable-looking woman in a neat black dress, with a smart white
apron, entered, and to her Miss Letty turned.
"This is the dear little fellow I told you about, Margaret," she said,
"the only son of the D'Arcy-Muirs. Master Boy he is called. Boy, will
you say 'how do you do' to Margaret?"
Boy looked up. He was easier in his mind now and felt much more at home.
"How do, Margit?" he said cheerfully. "Me tum to stay wiz Kiss-Letty."
"Bless the wee laddie!" exclaimed Margaret in the broad soft accent of
Inverness, of which lovely town she was a proud native; and down she
flopped on her knees, already the willing worshipper of one small
child's winsomeness. "And a grand time ye'll have of it, I'm thinking,
if ye're as good as ye're bonnie! Come away wi' me now and I'll wash
ye'r bit handies and put on anither suit," for her quick eye had
perceived the brown paper parcel while her quick mind had guessed its
contents. "And what time will he be for bed, mem?"
"What time do you go to bed, Boy?" asked Miss Letty, caressing his
curls.
"Eight klock!" responded Boy promptly; "Gerty puts me in barf and zen in
bed."
Both Miss Leslie and her maid laughed.
"Well, it will be just the same to-night," said 'Kiss-Letty' gaily;
"only it will be Margaret instead of Gerty. But it's a long way off
eight o'clock,--you go with Margaret now, and she will bring you back to
me in the drawing-room, and there you shall see some pictures."
Boy smiled at the prospect,--he was ready for anything now. He put his
hand trustfully in that of Margaret, merely observing in a casual sort
of way--
"Dunny tum wiz me."
Margaret looked round enquiringly.
"He means his Cow," explained Miss Letty, taking that animal from its
velvet pasture-land and handing it to her maid, who received it quite
respectfully. "Just remember, Margaret, will you, that he likes the Cow
on his bed! It sleeps with him always."
Mistress and maid exchanged a laughing glance, and then Boy trotted off.
Miss Letty watched him slowly stumping up her handsome staircase,
holding on to Margaret's hand and chattering all the way, and a sudden
haze of tears blinded her sight. What she had missed in her life!--what
she had missed! She thought of it with no selfish regret, but only a
little aching pain, and even now she stilled that pain with a prayer--a
prayer that though God had not seen fit to bless her with the love of
husband or children she might still be of use in the world,--of use
perchance if only to shield and benefit this one little human life of
Boy's which had attracted so much of her interest and affection. And
with this thought, dismissing her tears, she went up to her own room,
changed her walking dress for a graceful tea-gown of black Chantilly
lace which clothed her slender figure with becoming ease and dignity,
and went into her drawing-room, where, near the French window which
opened into a beautiful conservatory, stood a bluff, big gentleman with
a white moustache, chirruping tenderly to a plump bullfinch, which made
no secret of the infinite surprise it felt at such strange attempts to
imitate melodious warbling. Miss Leslie uttered a low exclamation of
pleasure.
"Why, Dick," she said, "this is delightful! I thought you had gone
abroad?"
"So I was going," responded Dick--otherwise Major Desmond, advancing to
take Miss Letty's outstretched hand and raise it gallantly to his
lips,--"but just as I was about to start, I read in the newspapers of a
fellow--a man who was once in my regiment--who had got insulted by a
dirty ragamuffin of a chap in the Custom-house on the French
frontier,--and I said to myself--'What!--am I going out of England to be
treated as if I were a thief, and have my portmanteau searched by a
Frenchy? No!--as an English officer I won't submit to it! I will stay at
home!' It was a sudden resolution. You know I'm a fellow to make sudden
resolutions, am't I, Letty? Well, give you my word, I never looked upon
Custom-house regulations in the same light as I do now! Come to think of
it, you know, directly we leave our own shores we're treated like
thieves and rascals by all the foreigners,--and why should we expose
ourselves to it? Eh? I say why?"
Miss Leslie laughed.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know why," she answered. "Only I rather wonder
you never thought of all this before. You have always gone abroad some
time in the year, you know."
The Major pulled his white moustache thoughtfully.
"Yes, I have," he admitted. "And why the devil--I beg your pardon!--I
have done it I can't imagine. England's good enough for anybody. There's
too much gadding about everywhere nowadays. And the world seems to me to
shrink in consequence. Shrink! by Jove!--it's no bigger than a billiard
ball!"
Miss Letty smiled, and said "Sweet!" to her bullfinch, which straightway
warbled with delightful inaccuracy the quaint air of "The Whistling
Coon."
"Bravo! Bravo!" exclaimed Major Desmond, after listening attentively to
the little bird's performance. "Now why the chap couldn't do that for me
I can't understand. I have been chirruping to him till my tongue
aches--and couldn't get a note out of him. Only a wink. You just say
'sweet' and off he starts. Well, and what have you been doing with
yourself, Letty? You look very fit."
"Oh, I'm always 'fit' as you call it," said Miss Leslie placidly. "I
live the same quiet life month after month, you know, and I suppose it's
scarcely possible for anything to go very wrong with me. I have passed
through my storm and stress. The days go by now all in the same even,
monotonous way."
Major Desmond took two or three turns up and down the room.
"Well, if you find it even and monotonous to be doing good all your
time," he observed, "I can only say that I wish a few more people would
indulge in monotony! But don't you mean to have a change?"
"Oh, I have provided a little distraction for myself," said Miss Letty,
smiling demurely; "I have got a young man to stay with me for a few
days."
"Young man!" exclaimed the Major. "Well, upon my word----" here he
stopped short, for at that moment Boy, attired in his best suit of white
flannel, his face shining with recent ablutions, and his golden hair
brushed into a shining aureole of curls round his brow, trotted into the
room with a cheerful confidence and assertiveness quite wonderful to
see.
"Ullo, Major!" he exclaimed: "Zoo tum to see Boy?"
Major Desmond rose to the occasion at once.
"Of course!" he said, and lifting Boy in his arms he set him on his
broad shoulder. "Of course I have come to see you! Impossible to keep
away knowing you to be here!"
Boy chuckled.
"Me tum to stay wiz Kiss-Letty," he announced.
"So I perceive," replied the Major--and turning to Miss Leslie he said,
"This is the young man, eh, Letty? Well, however did you manage to get
hold of him?"
"I will tell you all about it at dinner," she answered in a low tone.
"You will stay and dine?"
"With pleasure--in fact I hoped you would ask me," responded the Major
frankly; "I'm sick of club food."
Boy from his lifted position on the Major's shoulder had been quietly
surveying everything in the room. He now pointed to a copy of
Burne-Jones's "Golden Stair."
"Pitty ladies," he remarked.
"Yes," agreed Major Desmond, "very pitty! All so good and sweet and
lovely, aren't they, Boy? Each one sweeter, gooder, lovelier as they
come,--and all so full of pleasant thoughts that they have almost grown
alike. One ideal of goodness taking many forms!"
He spoke to himself now and not to Boy--and his eyes rested musingly on
Miss Letty. She was just setting a large vase of roses on the grand
piano. She looked from his distance a very gentle, fragile lady--dainty
and elegant too--almost young.
"Kiss-Letty wiz ze roses," observed Boy.
"Just so!" agreed the Major, "and that is where she always is, Boy!
Roses mean everything that is good and sweet and wholesome, and I should
not wonder if 'Kiss-Letty' was not something of a rose itself in her
way!"
"Oh, Dick!" expostulated Miss Letty, "how can you talk such nonsense to
the child! What flattery to an old woman like me!"
"Boy doesn't know whether I'm talking nonsense or the utmost wisdom,"
responded the Major undauntedly. "And as I have often told you, you will
never be old to me, Letty. You are the best friend I ever had, and if
friends are not the roses of life, I should like to know what flowers
they do represent! And what I have said before, I say again, that I'm
ready to marry you to-morrow if you'll have me."
"Oh, dear me!" sighed Miss Leslie, with a little tremulous laugh. "Just
think! Saying such a thing before Boy!"
"Boy! I guarantee he doesn't understand a word I have been talking
about. Eh, Boy? Do you know what I have been saying to 'Kiss-Letty'?"
Boy looked down at him with a profound air of cherubic wisdom.
"Wants marry Kiss-Letty 'morrow if 'ave me," he said solemnly.
And then Major Desmond had one of his alarming laughs,--a laugh which
threatened to dislodge Boy altogether from his position and throw him
headlong on the floor. Miss Letty laughed too, but more gently, and on
her pale cheeks there was a rosy tinge suggestive of a blush.
"Well, well!" said the Major, recovering from his hilarity at
last,--"Boy is not such a fool as he looks, evidently! There, Letty, I
won't tease you any more. But you are very obstinate, you know,--yes,
you are! What does Longfellow say?--
'Trust no future, howe'er pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead:
Act, act, in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead.'
That's wholesome stuff, Letty. I like Longfellow because he is always
straight. Some poets go giggetting about in all sorts of dark corners
and pop out suddenly upon you with a fire-cracker of a verse which you
can't understand a bit, because all the meaning fizzles out while you
are looking at it,--but Longfellow!--'Let the dead past bury its dead.'
That's sense, Letty. And 'Act, act in the living present.' Why, that's
sense too. And why don't you do it?"
"I think I try to do it," answered Miss Letty quietly; "I like to be
useful wherever I go. But for me there is no dead past, as you know,--it
lives always with me and makes the best and sweetest part of the
present."
"There, I suppose I've been putting my foot in it again!" muttered Major
Desmond, somewhat disconsolately. "You know I never meant to suggest
that you did not do all the good you could and more than is necessary in
your life, but what I see in Longfellow's line is that you should 'act,
act in the living present' for yourself, Letty. For yourself--make
yourself happy, as well as others--make me happy! Now, wouldn't that
be a praiseworthy deed?"
"Not at all," replied Miss Letty, smiling, "for you deserve to be much
happier than I could ever make you. You know there are many charming
young women you could marry."
"No, I don't know anything of the sort," said the Major decisively. "The
young women of the present day are all hussies--brazen-faced hussies, in
my opinion. Girls don't blush any more nowadays; men blush for them.
No--you're not going to get rid of me in that way, Letty. At my age I'm
not going to be such a vain old ass as to go smirking after girls who
would only laugh at me behind my back. I don't believe in philandering,
but I believe in love--yes, love at all ages and in all seasons--but it
must be the real thing and no sham about it." Here he stopped, for Boy
was wriggling on his shoulder and showing unmistakable signs of wishing
to go free; so he gently set him down. "There you are, little chap!--and
there you go--straight for the roses and 'Kiss-Letty'! Lucky rascal!"
This as Boy trotted up to Miss Leslie and stretched his short arms
caressingly round her soft lace skirts.
"Where's booful pick-shures?" he demanded; "Boy likes pick-shures."
Miss Leslie then bethought herself that she had promised he should see
some 'booful pick-shures' when he came into the drawing-room, and
turning towards a pile of ditions de luxe in large quarto of famous
works such as "Don Quixote," "Idylls of the King," and Dante's "Divina
Commedia," she hesitated.
"Which shall I give him, Dick?" she asked the Major.
"Put 'em all on the floor and let him choose for himself," was the
reply. "I believe in treating children like lambs and birds--let them
frisk and fly about in the fields of general information as they
like,--choose their own bits of grass as it were. Now here's a
quintessence of brain for you,"--and he lifted four large volumes off
the side-table where they generally stood and placed them on the
floor--"Come here, Boy! Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Tennyson!--Never
heard of 'em, did you? No!--but you will probably have the pleasure of
making the acquaintance of all four of 'em in a few years. That's where
the wonderful immortality of genius comes in,--the dead author is
spiritually able to shake hands with and talk to each and every
generation which follows him. There is a wonderful secret in the power
of expressed thought if we could only fathom it. Now, which one are you
going for first?"
Boy sat down on the floor and considered. One or two of the big books he
opened cautiously and looked in as though expecting to see some strange
living object inside,--then he shut them quickly, smiling mysteriously
to himself the while. Then in the same doubtful way he peeped into the
second volume of Dante entitled "Paradiso"--and lo! a picture of angels
ascending and descending--one of Dor's most wonderful conceptions of
forms of light portrayed in a dazzling atmosphere,--and his blue eyes
sparkled--he opened the book wider and wider--till the whole page burst
upon his view, whereupon he curled down closer still and stared
silently. Miss Letty seated herself in a low chair, and took out some
dainty embroidery, and while her swift needle went in and out with a
bright-coloured silk behind it, which wove a flower as it moved, she
watched the little fellow, and Major Desmond sitting opposite to her did
the same. The bullfinch began a scrap of his 'aria' but broke off to
preen his wing,--and there was a silence in the pretty room while Boy's
innocent little face drooped in a rapture over the pictured scene of
heavenly glory. Not a word did he utter,--but merely drew a long breath
like a sigh, and his eyes darkened with an expression of wistful
gravity. Then he turned over a few more pages and came upon that most
exquisite "Cross" of Dor's imagination, where the dying Saviour of the
world hangs crucified, but is surrounded at every point by angels. This
seemed to fascinate him more than the other, and he remained absorbed
for many minutes, enrapt and speechless. Some unaccountable influence
held Miss Leslie and her old friend Dick Desmond silent too. The
thoughts of both were very busy. The Major had a secret in his soul
which, had he declared it, would have well-nigh killed Letitia
Leslie,--he knew that the man she had loved, and whose memory she
honoured with such faithful devotion, had been nothing but a heartless
scamp, who in an unguarded moment had avowed to him, Major Desmond, that
he was going to throw over Letty when he got back from India, as he was
'on' with a much prettier and wealthier woman; but he had never 'got
back from India' to carry out his intention--death had seized him in the
heyday of his career, and Letty believed he had died loving her, and her
only. Who would have undeceived her? Who would have poisoned the faith
of that simple trusting heart? Not Dick Desmond certainly; though he had
himself loved her for nearly twenty years, and being of a steadfast
nature had found it impossible to love any one else. And he was more
content to have her as a friend than to have the most charming 'other
woman' as a wife. And he had jogged on quietly till now--well, now he
was fifty, and Letty was forty-five.
"We're getting on--by Jove, yes!--we're getting on!" mused Dick. "And
just think what that dead rascal out in India has cost us! Our very
lives! All sacrificed! Well, never mind!--I would not spoil Letty's
belief in her sweetheart for the world."
And yet he could not help feeling it to be a trifle 'hard,' as he felt
the charm of Letty's quiet presence, and saw Boy bending over Dor's
picture of the "Cross."
"If--if she would have had me, we might have had a child of our own
like that," he mused dolefully; "and as it is, the poor little chap has
got a drunken beast for a father and a slovenly fool for a mother! Well,
well--God arranges things in a queer way, and I must say, without
irreverence, it doesn't seem at all a clear or a just way to me. Why the
innocent should suffer for the guilty (and they always do) is a
mystery."
Letty, meanwhile, was thinking too. Such sweet and holy
thoughts!--thoughts of her dead lover,--her 'brave, true Harry,' as she
was wont to call him in her own mind--a mind which was as white and pure
as the 'Taj-Mahal,' and which enshrined this same 'Harry' in its midst
as a heroic figure of stately splendour and godlike honour. No man was
ever endowed by woman with more virtues than Letty gave to her dead
betrothed, and her faith in him was so perfect that she had become
content with her loneliness because she felt that it was only for a
little while,--that soon she and her beloved would meet again never to
part. Is it impossible to believe that the steadfast faith and love of a
good woman may uplift the departed spirit of an unworthy man out of an
uttermost Hell by its force and purity? Surely in these days, when we
are discovering what marvellous properties there are in simple light,
and the passing of sound through space, it would be foolish to deny the
probability of noble Thought radiating to unmeasured distances, and
affecting for good those who are gone from us, whom we loved on
earth,--and whose present state and form of life we are not as yet
permitted to behold. Anyway, whatever wonders lie hidden in waiting for
us behind Death's dark curtain, it may be conceded that the unfaithful
soul of the man she loved was in no wise injured by Miss Letty's
remembering tenderness and prayers, but rather strengthened and
sustained. She was touched just now by Boy's admiration of the pictured
angels,--and to her always thoughtful mind there was something quaint in
the spectacle of the little wondering fellow bending over the abstruse
Great Poem of Italy which arose to life and being through the poet's own
Great Wrong. Little did the enemies of Dante dream that their names
would be committed to lasting execration in a Hell so immortal as the
'Inferno,'--though it is to be deplored that so supreme a writer should
have thought it worth his while to honour, by handing down to posterity,
the names of those who were as nobodies compared with himself. However
he, like other old-world poets, was not permitted to see his fate beyond
his own lifetime. We are wiser in our generation. We know that the more
an author's work is publicly praised the more likely it is to die
quickly and immediately,--and those who desire their thoughts to last,
and to carry weight with future generations, should pray for the
condemnation of their present compeers in order to be in tune with the
slow but steady pulse-beat of Fame. One has only to look back through a
few centuries to see the list of the Despised who are now become the
Glorious--and a study of contemporary critics on the works of Sir Walter
Scott and Charles Dickens, is a very wholesome lesson to the untried
writer of books who is afraid of the little acrimonies of Fleet Street.
To lead the world one must first be crucified,--this is the chief lesson
of practical Christianity.
"Rather curious," said Major Desmond at last, nodding towards Boy, and
speaking softly as if he were in church, "how he seems to like those
fanciful things!"
Miss Letty smiled.
"Boy!"
Boy looked up with a start.
"Do you like the picture-book?"
Boy gave no answer in words. He merely nodded and placed one dumpy hand
on the "Cross of Angels," to keep the place. Suddenly, however, he found
voice. He had turned over a few more pages, though still careful not to
lose the picture he had selected as his favourite, when he stopped and
exclaimed breathlessly,--
"Boy bin there!"
The Major, with remarkable alertness, went down on the floor beside him
and looked over his golden head.
"Boy been there! Nonsense! What! In that wonderful garden, with all
those flowers and trees and lovely angels flying about! Boy couldn't
get there if he tried!"
Boy looked at him with solemnly reproachful eyes.
"Tell 'oo Boy bin there," he repeated. "Boy seen f'owers and boo'ful
people! Boy knows vezy well about it!"
The Major became interested.
"Oh, all right!--I don't wish to contradict you, little chappie!" he
said with a cheery and confidential air,--"But when were you there last,
eh?"
Boy considered--his rosy lips tightened, and his fair brows puckered in
a frown of mental puzzlement.
"Me dunno," he replied at last: "long, long time 'go--awfoo' long!" and
he gave a deep sigh. "Dunno 'ow long--" here he studied the picture
again with an approving air of familiarity. "But Boy 'members it;--pitty
p'ace,--pitty flowers,--all bwight,--awfoo' bwight!--'ess! me 'members
it!"
The Major got up from his knees, dusted his trousers, and looked
quizzically at Miss Letty.
"Odd little rascal," he observed, sotto voce. "Doesn't know a bit what
he is jabbering about!"
Miss Letty's soft blue eyes rested on the child thoughtfully.
"I'm not sure about that, Dick," she said. "We are rather arrogant, we
old worldly-wise people, in our estimate of children;--Boy may
remember where he came from, and the imagination of a great artist may
have recalled to him a true reality."
Her voice was very sweet,--her face expressed a faith and hope which
made it beautiful; and Dick Desmond, in his quick, impulsive fashion,
caught one of her little white hands and raised it to his lips with all
the gallant grace of a soldier and a gentleman.
"God bless you, Letty!" he said heartily; "I know very well where you
came from!--and I don't want any picture but yourself to remind me of
the fact!"
CHAPTER IV
That evening, after Boy had gone to bed, Miss Leslie and the Major
discussed the possibilities of his future with great and affectionate
interest.
"Of course," said Desmond, "it is a splendid chance for the boy,--but,
Letty, that is just the very reason that I am afraid he will not be
allowed to have it. The affairs of humanity are arranged in a very
curiously jumbled-up fashion, and I have always found that when some
specially good luck appears about to favour a deserving person,
something unfavourable comes in the way and prevents him getting it. And
Fortune frequently showers her choicest gifts on the most unworthy
scoundrels, male and female, that burden this earth's surface. It's
odd--it's unfair, but it's true."
"Not always," said Miss Leslie, gently. "You really must not get into
the habit of looking on the worst side of life, Dick."
"I won't," responded the Major promptly--"at least, not when you're
looking at me. Out of your sight I can do as I like!"
Miss Letty laughed. Then she returned to the chief subject of interest.
"You see," she said, "it is not as if the D'Arcy-Muirs were rich and had
plenty of opportunities for their son's advance in life. They certainly
have enough to live comfortably on, if they are frugal and careful, but
the man is so incorrigible----"
"And the woman," put in Major Desmond.
"Well, yes--she too is incorrigible in another way,--but after all
slovenliness can scarcely be called a sin."
"I think it can," said the Major emphatically. "A slovenly woman is an
eyesore and creates discord and discomfort by her very appearance. She
is a walking offence. And when slovenliness is combined with
obstinacy,--by Jove, Letty!--I tell you pigs going the wrong way home
are easy driving compared to Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir!"
"Yes, I know!" and for a moment Miss Leslie's even brows puckered in a
little vexed line. "And her obstinacy is of such a strange kind,--all
about the merest trifles! She argues on the question of a teacup or a
duster to the extreme verge of silliness, but in important matters, such
as the health or well-being of her husband--or of Boy--she lets
everything go to pieces without a word of protest!"
"Delightful creature!" murmured the Major, sipping his glass of port
wine with a relish: they were at dessert, and he was very
comfortable,--pleased with the elegance of the table, which glistened
with old silver, delicate glass, and tastefully arranged flowers,--and
still more pleased with the grace and kindness of his gentle
hostess,--"I remember her before Jim married her. A handsome large
creature with a slow smile,--one of those smiles which begin in the
exact middle of the lips, spread to the corners and gradually widen all
over the face,--an indiarubber smile I call it,--but the men who took to
her in her young days used to rave over her smile, and one idiot said
she had 'magnificent maternal brows like the Niobe in Florence.' Good
old Niobe! Yes, Letty,--there are a certain set of fellows who always
lose their heads on large women,--the larger the better, give you my
word! They never consider that the large girl will become a larger
matron, and unless attacked by a wasting disease (which heaven forfend)
will naturally grow larger every year. And I tell you, Letty, there is
nothing in the world that kills a romantic passion so surely and
hopelessly as Fat! Ah, you may laugh!--but it is a painful truth.
Poetry--moonlight--music--kisses--all that pleasant stuff and nonsense
melt before Fat. I have never met a man yet who was in love with a fat,
really fat woman! And if a slim girl marries and gets fat in the years
to come, her husband, poor chap, may deplore it,--deeply deplore it--but
it's very distressing--he cannot help it--his romance dies under it.
Dies utterly! Ah! We're weak creatures, we men, we cannot stand Fat. We
like plumpness,--oh yes! We like round rosy curves and dimples, but not
actual Fat. Now, Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir will become--indeed has become Fat."
"Dear me!" and Miss Leslie laughed, "you really are quite eloquent,
Dick! I never heard you go on in this way before. Poor Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir!
She really has no alternative----"
"No alternative but to become Fat?" enquired the Major, solemnly glaring
over his port wine.
"Now you know I don't mean it in that way," laughed Miss Leslie. "You
really are incorrigible! What I wished to point out was, that when a
woman finds that her husband doesn't care a bit how she looks or what
she wears, she is apt to become careless."
"It doesn't follow that because a man is a churl a woman should lose her
self-respect," said the Major. "Surely she should take a pride in being
clean and looking as well as she can for her own sake. Then in this
particular case there is Boy."
"Yes--there is Boy," agreed Miss Letty meditatively. "And he certainly
does notice things."
"Notice things? I should think he does! He is always noticing. He
notices his mother's untidiness, and he notices his father's
disgracefulness. If I were Jim D'Arcy-Muir I should be ashamed to meet
that little chap's eyes."
Miss Letty sighed.
"Do you think," she asked after a pause, "they will let me have him?"
The Major considered,--and for some minutes sat twirling the ends of his
white moustache reflectively.
"Well, to tell you the truth, Letty, I don't," he said at last,--"I
don't believe they will for a moment. Some parents would refuse your
offer on account of their love and affection for the child, and their
own natural desire not to part with him. That will not be the
D'Arcy-Muirs' reason. They will simply argue that you are trying to
'patronise' them. It will be exactly like their muddled minds to put it
that way. They will say, 'She thinks we are going to put our son under
obligations to her for her money.' And though they conduct themselves
like pigs they think a great deal of themselves in a 'county-family'
fashion. No, Letty--I'm afraid you won't get a chance of doing any good
in that quarter. But if you like I will take soundings--that is, I will
suggest the idea of such a thing and see how they take it. What do you
say?"
"Oh, I wish you would!" said Miss Letty earnestly. "You see you know
Captain D'Arcy-Muir----"
"Well, in a way,--yes, I know him in a way," corrected the Major; "I
used to know him better than I do now. He was never in my regiment,
thank the Lord! But I will try to get hold of him in a sober moment, and
see what can be done. But I don't give out any hopes of him."
"Oh, Dick!" sighed Miss Letty.
"Well, I shall be very sorry for your disappointment, Letty,--very
sorry--and sorrier still for the little chap, for I think his life
literally hangs on the balance of this chance. If he is not allowed to
take it, all the worse for him,--he will come to no good, I fear."
"Don't say that!" pleaded Miss Leslie, with pain in her voice; "don't
say that!"
"All right, I won't say it," said the Major, expressing however in his
face and tone of voice that he would probably think it all the same.
"But the world is a bad place to fight in if you are not thoroughly well
equipped for the battle. God made the world, so we are told, but I doubt
whether He wished it to be quite as overcrowded as it is just now. All
the professions--all the trades--all the arts--overdone! Army no
go,--Navy no go. If you are a soldier and get any chance of facing fire,
you know just what your reward is likely to be, unless you are a
Kitchener. You may get a V.C., and after that the workhouse, like some
of the Crimean heroes. And in the Navy you get literally nothing but
very poor pay. The best thing for a man now is to be an explorer, and
even when you are that, the world cannot be persuaded to believe that
you have explored anything, or been anywhere. You have simply been
sitting at home and reading up!" He laughed, and then went on, "If you
get Boy what are you going to do with him?"
"I shall see what he likes to do best himself," said Letty.
"At present he likes to hug you and see 'pick-shures' of heavenly
places," said the Major. "That's a bad sign, Letty! Woman and Art spells
ruin like theatrical speculation! Well! Come and have a game of chess
with me before I go home to my lonely bachelor rooms;--it is really too
bad of you to make a sour old man of me in this way!"
Miss Leslie laughed heartily.
"No one will ever call you a sour old man, Dick," she said as she rose
from the table. "You are the most genial and generous-hearted fellow I
know."
"Then why won't you have me?" pleaded Desmond.
"Oh, you know why," said Letty. "What is the use of going over it all
again?"
"Going over it all--yes--I know!" said the Major dismally. "You have got
it into your head that if you were to marry me, and that then afterwards
we died--as we shall do--and went to Heaven--which is a question--you
would find your Harry up there in the shape of a stern reproving angel,
ready to scold you for having a little happiness and sympathy on earth
when he was not there. Now, if things are to be arranged in that way,
some folks will be in awful trouble. The ladies who have had several
husbands,--the husbands who have had several wives,--stern reproving
angels all round,--good gracious! What a row there will be! Fact is
fact, Letty,--there cannot possibly be peace in Heaven under such
circumstances!"
"Do stop talking such nonsense," said Miss Leslie, still laughing.
"Really I begin to wish you had gone abroad after all!"
"No, you don't," said Dick confidently, as he followed her into the
drawing-room. "You are pleased to see me, you know you are! Hullo!
Here's Margaret. What's up? Something wrong with Boy?"
"Oh no, sir," said Margaret, who had just entered the room; "but I
thought perhaps Miss Leslie would like to see him asleep. He is just the
bonniest wee bairnie!"
"Oh, I must go and look at him!" said Miss Letty eagerly. "Will you come
too, Dick?"
The Major assented with alacrity, and they followed Margaret upstairs,
treading softly and on tiptoe as they entered the pretty airy room
selected for Boy's slumbers. It was a large room, and one corner of it
was occupied by the big bed allotted to Margaret. In an arched recess,
draped with white muslin, was a smaller and daintier couch,--and here
Boy lay in his first sleep, his fair curls tossed on the pillow, his
round soft face rosy with warmth and health, his pretty mouth slightly
parted in a smile. Miss Leslie bent over him tenderly and kissed his
forehead,--Major Desmond looked on in contemplative and somewhat awed
silence. Presently he noticed a piece of string tied to the little
fellow's wrist. Pointing to it he whispered solemnly,
"What's that?"
Margaret smiled.
"Oh, he just begged me to get him a bit of string," she said. "He said
he always had to fasten his Cow up at night lest it should run away!"
Margaret laughed. "Bless the wee lad! And there you see is the Cow at
the foot of the bed, and he has tied it to the string in that way
himself!"
"Good gracious me!" said the Major, staring, "I never heard of such a
thing in my life! And the Cow can't run away! Lucky Cow!"
Boy stirred in his sleep and smiled. A slight movement of the chubby
wrist to which the beloved "Dunny" was tied caused it to wag its movable
head automatically, and for a moment it looked quite a sentient thing
nodding wisely over unexpressed and inexpressible pastoral problems.
"Come away," then said Miss Letty gently. "We shall wake him if we
remain any longer."
"Yes," said the Major dreamily, "we shall wake him! And then the Cow
might bolt, or take to tossing somebody on its horns, which would be
very alarming! God bless my soul! What a little chap it is! Beginning to
look after a cow at his time of life!--a budding farmer, upon my word!
Letty, Australia is the place for him,--a wild prairie and cattle, you
know,--he is evidently a born rancher!"
Letty laughed, and they left the room together. Margaret watched them as
they went downstairs, and gave a little regretful sigh.
"Poor dear Miss Letty!" she thought. "The sweetest lady that ever lived,
and no man has ever been wise enough to find it out and marry her."
She bent over Boy's bed and carefully adjusted the coverlet to keep him
warm, then lowering the light, left him sleeping peacefully with "Dunny"
on guard.
CHAPTER V
It is a trite axiom, but no less true than trite, that we are always
happiest when we are most unconscious of happiness,--when the simple
fact of mere existence is enough for us,--when we do not know how, or
when, or where the causes for our pleasure come in, and when we are
content to live as the birds and flowers live, just for the one day's
innocent delight, untroubled by any thoughts concerning the past or
future. This is a state of mind which is generally supposed to vanish
with early youth, though there are some few peculiarly endowed natures,
sufficiently well poised, and confident of the flowing in of eternal
goodness everywhere, to be serenely joyous with all the trust of a
little child to the very extreme of old age. But even with men and women
not so fortunately situated the days when they were happy without
knowing it remain put away in their memories as the sweetest time of
life, and are recalled to them again and again with more or less
poignancy, when pain and disappointment, deceit, cruelty, and harshness
unwind the rose-coloured veil of romance from persons and things and
show them the world at its worst. Boy, in the house of Miss Letitia
Leslie, was just now living the unconscious life, and making for himself
such a picture gallery of sweet little souvenirs as were destined to
return to him in years to come sharpened with pain, and embittered by a
profitless regret. Every morning he rose up to some new and harmless
delight, among surroundings of perfect sweetness and peace,--order,
cleanliness, kindness, good-humour and cheerfulness were the hourly
investiture of the household,--and after he had been with "Kiss-Letty"
two or three days Boy began dimly to wonder whether there really was
such an individual as "Poo Sing," or such a large lady as "Muzzy," in
the world. Not that the little fellow was forgetful of his parents,--but
the parents themselves were of so hazy, and vague, and undeterminate a
character that the individuality of the servant Gerty was far more real
and actual to the infant mind of their son than their distinguished
personalities. It is to be feared that Boy would have been but faintly
sorry had he been told he was never to see his "kind good Muzzy" any
more. This was not Boy's fault by any means; the blame rested entirely
with the "kind good Muzzy" herself. And probably if Boy had felt any
regrets about it they would have been more for the parting from the "Poo
Sing" gentleman who was so often ill. For the delusive notion of chronic
illness on the part of "Poo Sing" had got firmly fixed into Boy's
little head,--he felt the situation to be serious,--he was full of a
wistful and wondering compassion, and he had a vague idea that his Dads
did not get on so well without him. But this he kept to himself. He was
for the present perfectly happy, and wished for no more delightful
existence than that which he enjoyed in the company of "Kiss-Letty." He
was going through some wonderful experiences of life as well. For
instance, he was taken for the first time to the Zoo, and had a ride on
an elephant,--a ride which filled him with glory and terror. Glory that
he could ride an elephant,--for he thought it was entirely his own skill
that guided and controlled the huge beast's gentle meanderings along the
smoothly rolled paths of the gardens, and terror lest, skilful and
powerful though he was, he should fall, deeply humiliated, out of the
howdah in which he was proudly seated. Then he was taken to Earl's Court
Exhibition, and became so wearied with the wonders there shown to him
from all parts of the world,--there were so many wonders--and the world
seemed so immense,--that he fell fast asleep while going round a strange
pond in a strange boat called a Venetian gondola, and Major Desmond took
him up in his arms, and he remembered nothing more till he found himself
in his little bed with Margaret tucking him up and making him cosy. Then
there were the days when he was not taken out sightseeing at all, but
simply stayed with Miss Letty and accompanied her everywhere, and he was
not sure that he did not like these times best of all. For after his
dinner in the middle of the day, and before they went for their drive,
"Kiss-Letty" would take him on her knee and tell him the most beautiful
and amazing fairy stories,--descriptions of aerial palaces and
glittering-winged elves, which fascinated him and kept him in
open-mouthed ecstacy,--and somehow or other he learned a good deal out
of what he heard. Miss Leslie was not a brilliant woman, but she was
distinctly cultured and clever, and she had a way of narrating some of
the true histories of the world as though they were graceful fantasies.
In this fashion she told Boy of the discovery of America by Christopher
Columbus,--and ever afterwards the famous navigator remained in Boy's
mind as a sort of fairy king who had made a new world. Happy indeed were
all those first lessons he received concerning the great and good things
done by humanity,--sweet and refining was the influence thus exerted
upon him,--and if such peaceful days could have gone on expanding
gradually around his life the more that life needed them, who can say
what might not have been the beneficial result? But it often seems as if
some capricious fate interfered between the soul and its environment;
where happiness might be perfect, the particular ingredient of
perfection is held back or altogether denied,--and truly there would
seem to be no good reason for this. Stoic philosophy would perhaps
suggest that the fortunate environment is held back from the individual
in order that he may create it for himself, and mould his own nature in
the struggle,--but then it so often happens that this holding back
affects the nature that is not qualified either by birth or
circumstances to enfranchise itself. A grand environment is frequently
bestowed on a low and frivolous character that has not, and never will
have, any appreciation of its fortunate position, while all rights,
privileges, and advancements are obstinately refused to the soul that
would most gladly and greatly have valued them. And so it was fated to
be with Boy. The happy days of his visit to Miss Letty came, as all
happy days must do, to an end; and one morning, as he sat at breakfast
eating a succulent slice of bread-and-jam, he was startled to see
"Kiss-Letty's" blue eyes brimming over with tears. Amazing grief and
fear took possession of him,--he put down his bread-and-jam and looked
pitifully at his kind friend and hostess.
"Zoo kyin', Kiss-Letty," he said: "Where does it hurt oo?"
Miss Letty tried to smile, but only feebly succeeded. She could have
answered that "it" hurt her everywhere. "It" was a letter from Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir requesting that Boy might be returned to his home that
afternoon. And Miss Letty knew that this peremptory summons meant that
her wish to adopt Boy was frustrated and that the cause was lost. She
looked tenderly at the sweet little face that was turned so wistfully
to hers, and said gently though with a slight quiver about her lips,--
"Muzzy wants you, darling! I am to take you home to her to-day."
Boy gave no reply. It was the first difficult moral situation of his
life, and it was hardly to be wondered at that he found it almost too
much for him. The plain fact of the matter was that, however much
"Muzzy" wanted him, he did not want "Muzzy." Nor did he at all wish to
go home. But he had already a dim consciousness of the awful "must" set
over us by human wills, which, unlike God's will, are not always working
for good,--and he had a glimmering perception that he was bound to
submit to these inferior orders till the time came when he could create
his own "must" and abide by it. But he could not put these vague
emotions into speech; all he did was to lose his appetite for
bread-and-jam and to stare blankly at "Kiss-Letty." She meanwhile put
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's letter in her pocket, and tried to assume her usual
bright and cheerful air, but with very poor success. For in truth she
was greatly disappointed,--and when she lifted Boy out of his chair at
the table and set him down on the floor with a very fascinating toy in
the shape of a 'merry-go-round' moved by clockwork, which however he
contemplated this morning with a faint sense of the futility of all
earthly pleasures, she was vaguely troubled by presentiments to which
she could give no name. The hours wore on languidly--and it was with a
sense of something like relief that she heard a sharp rat-tat-tat at the
door, and a minute afterwards Major Desmond's cheery voice in the hall.
She went out to meet him, leaving Boy with his toys in her
morning-room,--but one glance at his face confirmed all her worst fears.
"It's no go, Letty!" he said regretfully, as he shook hands. "I've done
my best. But I'll tell you where the trouble is. It's the woman. I could
manage D'Arcy-Muir, but not that stout play-actress. When D'Arcy-Muir is
sober he sees clearly enough, and realizes quite well what a capital
chance it is for the little chap; but there is no doing anything with
his jelly-fish of a wife. She bridles all over with offence at your
proposition--says she has her own ideas for Boy's education and future
prospects. Nice ideas they are likely to be! Well! It's no use
fretting--you must resign yourself to the inevitable, Letty, and give up
your pet project."
Miss Letty listened with apparently unmoved composure while he
spoke,--then when he had finished she said quietly,--
"Yes, I suppose I must. Of course I cannot press the point. One must not
urge separation between mother and child. Oh yes, I must give it
up"--this with a little pained smile--"I have had to give up so many
hopes and joys in life that one more disappointment ought not to matter
so much, ought it? Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir has written to me--I am to take Boy
back this afternoon."
The Major's tender heart was troubled, but he would not offer his friend
any consolation,--he knew that the least said the soonest mended in such
cases,--and he saw that Miss Letty was just then too vexed and grieved
to bear many words even from him. So he went in to Boy, and wound up his
clockwork 'merry-go-round' for him, and told him fabulous stories of
giants,--giants who, though terrible enough to hold the world in awe,
were yet unable to resist the fascinations of "hasty pudding," and
killed themselves by eating too much of that delicacy in an unguarded
moment. Which remarkable narratives, in their grotesque incongruity,
conveyed the true lesson that a strong or giant mind may be frequently
destroyed by indulgence in one vice; though Boy was too young to look
for morals in fairy legends, and accepted these exciting histories as
veracious facts. And so the morning passed pleasantly after all,--though
now and then a wistful look came into Boy's eyes, and a shadow crossed
the placid fairness of "Kiss-Letty's" brow when either of the two
chanced to think of the coming parting from each other. Boy however did
not imagine it so much of a parting as Miss Letty knew it would be; he
had a firm belief that though he was going home to "Muzzy" he should
still see a great deal of his "Kiss-Letty" all the same. She on the
contrary knew enough of Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's obstinate disposition to be
quite certain of the fact that because a hint had been thrown out by
Major Desmond as to the advantages of her adopting Boy, she would be
forced to see less of him than ever. Strange it is, and in a manner
terrible, that the future of a whole life should be suspended thus
between two human wills!--the one working for pure beneficence, the
other for selfishness, and that the selfish side should win the day!
These are mysteries which none can fathom; but it too often happens that
a man's career has been decided for good or evil by the amenities or
discords of his parents, and their quarrels or agreements as to the
manner of his education.
It was with a sad and sinking heart that Miss Leslie took Boy
accompanied by the faithful "Dunny" back to the home of his progenitors
that afternoon. He had more luggage to carry away than he had arrived
with--a brown paper parcel would not hold his numerous toys, nor the
pretty little suits of clothes his kind hostess had presented him with.
So Major Desmond bought him an astonishingly smart portmanteau, which
fairly dazzled him, and into this most of his new things were packed by
Margaret, who was sincerely sorry to lose her little charge. The
'merry-go-round,' being a Parisian marvel of clockwork, had a special
case of its own, and "Dunny"!--well, "Dunny" was a privileged Cow, and
Boy always carried it in his arms. And thus he returned, Biblically
speaking, to the home of his fathers,--the house in Hereford Square, and
his large "Muzzy" received him with an almost dramatic effusiveness.
"You poor child!" she exclaimed. "How badly your hair has been brushed!
Oh dear!--it's becoming a perfect mop! We must have it cut to-morrow."
Miss Leslie's cheeks reddened slightly.
"Surely you will not have his curls cut yet?" she began.
"My dear Letitia, I know best," said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir with an irritating
air of smiling condescension. "A boy--even a very young boy--looks
absurd with long hair. You have been very kind and nice to him, I am
sure,--but of course you don't quite understand----"
Miss Leslie sat down opposite her with a curiously quiet air of
deliberation.
"I wish to speak to you for a few minutes," she said. "Is your husband
at home?"
"No. He has gone into the country for a few days. I am quite lonely!"
and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir heaved a lazy smile. "I felt I could not possibly
be a day longer without my son in the house."
The extraordinary air of grandiloquence she gave to the words "my son in
the house," applied to a child of barely four years old, would have
made Miss Leslie laugh at any other time, but she was too preoccupied
just now to even smile.
"I think," she went on in a methodical way--"I think Major Desmond did
me the kindness to mention to you and Captain D'Arcy-Muir an idea I had
concerning Boy----"
"Oh yes, a most absurd idea," interposed Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, with quite a
solemn reproach in her voice. "Pardon me for saying so, Letitia, but I
really am surprised at you. A preposterous idea!--to separate my boy
from me!"
"You mistake," answered Miss Leslie; "I had no wish to separate you. You
would have seen quite as much of Boy as you see now, or as you will see
when in the natural course of things you send him to school. My sole
desire in the proposition I made, and which I asked Major Desmond to
explain, was to benefit your dear little child in every possible way. I
am all alone in the world----"
"Yes, I know! So sad!" put in Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir in a tone of
commiseration that was almost an insult.
"And I have a large fortune," pursued Miss Letty with unruffled
composure: "when my time comes to die, I shall probably leave more than
one-hundred-thousand pounds----"
"No! You don't say so! Really, Letitia, you are indeed fortunate! Why
ever don't you marry? There are lots of poor fellows who would only be
too delighted."
"We can pass that question," said Miss Leslie patiently. "What I wish to
point out to you is that I am what the world calls a fairly wealthy
woman, and that if you could see your way to letting me adopt Boy and
educate him, everything I possessed would be his at my death."
"Oh, I don't wonder at all," said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir expansively, "that
you have taken such a fancy to my boy! That's quite natural. And really,
Letitia, if you don't know how to dispose of your fortune otherwise, I
cannot imagine anything more pleasant for you than to make him your
heir. But to adopt him for the purpose of educating him according to
your notions! Oh dear no! It would never do!"
"If he is not educated according to my notions he will certainly not be
my heir," said Miss Letty very firmly. "He is just now at an age when
anything can be done with him. Give me leave to take him out of the
radius of his father's unfortunate example, and surround him with all
that is healthy and good and useful, and I am sure you will not regret
it."
"Dear me! I am so sorry for you!" and "Muzzy" smiled blandly; "I feel
for you with all my heart, and I quite understand your wish to have Boy!
It would be delightful for you, but I cannot possibly hear of it! I am
his mother,--I could not part with him under any circumstances
whatever!"
"You are quite resolved, then?" and Miss Leslie looked at her steadily.
"Quite! I have my own ideas of education, and I could not possibly allow
the slightest interference. My son"--and here she swelled visibly with a
sense of her own importance--"will have every chance in life!"
"God grant it!" said Miss Letitia fervently. "No one in the world
desires his good more heartily than I do. And if ever I can be of any
assistance to him in his career, I will. But for the present I will say
good-bye,--both to you--and to him."
"Are you going away?" enquired Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir with but a faint show of
interest.
"Yes, I shall go to Scotland for the rest of the summer, and I have
arranged to join a party of friends in Egypt this winter. So I shall not
be here to interfere"--and Miss Letty smiled rather sadly as she
emphasised the word--"with Boy. I hope he will not quite forget me."
"I hope not," said "Muzzy" with bland commiseration. "But of course you
know children never remember anything or anybody for long. And what a
blessing that is, isn't it?"
Miss Letty made no answer; she was down on the floor kissing Boy.
"Good-bye, darling," she whispered,--"good-bye! I shall not see you for
a while, but you will always love me, won't you?"
"Alwiz love 'oo!" murmured Boy earnestly, with a vague sense that he was
experiencing a very dreadful emotion which seemed quite to contract his
little heart--"Alwiz!" and he threw his chubby arms round Miss Letty's
neck and kissed her again and again.
"Dear little man!" she said with almost a half-sob. "Poor little man!
God bless you!"
Then she rose, and turning to Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir held out her hand.
"Good-bye!" she said. "If you should ever change your mind about Boy,
please let me know at once. I shall be glad to have him at any time
between now and till he is seven,--after that it would be no use--as all
his first impressions will have taken root too deeply in his nature to
be eradicated."
"How dreadful!" exclaimed "Muzzy" with a wide smile. "You are really
quite a blue-stocking, Letitia! You talk just like a book of philosophy
or degeneration--which is it?--I never can remember! I always wonder
what people mean when they try to be philosophic and talk about
impressions on the mind! Because of course impressions are always coming
and going, you know--nothing ever remains long enough to make a lasting
effect."
Miss Letty said no more. It was useless to talk to such a woman about
anything but the merest commonplaces. The ins and outs of thought--the
strange slight threads of feeling and memory out of which the character
of a human being is gradually woven like a web,--the psychic influences,
the material surroundings, the thousand-and-one things that help to
strengthen or to enervate the brain and heart and spirit, all these
potentialities were unknown to the bovine female who waxed fat and
apathetic out of pure inertia and sloth. She was, as she was fond of
announcing, a 'mother,' but her ideas of motherhood consisted merely in
feeding Boy on sloppy food which frequently did not agree with him, in
dosing him with medicine when he was out of sorts, in dressing him
anyhow, and in allowing him to amuse himself as he liked wherever he
could, however he could, at all times and in all places dirty or clean.
A child of the gutter had the same sort of maternal care. Of order, of
time, of refinement, of elegance and sweet cleanliness there was no
perception whatever; while the Alpha and Omega of the disordered
household was of course "Poo Sing," who rolled in and rolled out as he
chose, more or less disgraceful in appearance and conduct at all hours.
However, there was no help for it--Miss Letty had held out a rescue, and
it had been refused, and there was nothing more to be done but to leave
Boy, for the present at any rate, in his unfortunate surroundings. But
there were tears in the eyes of the tender-hearted lady when she
returned home alone that day, and missed the little face and the gay
prattle that had so greatly cheered her loneliness. And after dinner,
when the stately Plimpton handed her her cup of coffee, she was foolish
enough to be touched by his solemnly civil presentation to her of a
diminutive pair of worn shoes set in orderly fashion on a large silver
tray.
"Master Boy left these behind him, my lady," he said,--he always called
Miss Letty 'my lady' out of the deep deference existing towards her in
his own mind. "They're his hold ones." Plimpton was fond of aspirating
his h's,--he thought the trick gave an elegant sound to his language.
"Thank you, Plimpton," said Miss Leslie, with a faint smile. "I will
send them to his mother in the morning."
But she did not send them to his mother. When she was quite alone, she
kissed each little shoe tenderly, and tied them up together in soft silk
paper with a band of blue ribbon,--and then, like a fond weak creature,
put them under her pillow when she went to bed and cried a little,--then
slept and dreamed that her "brave true Harry" was alive and wedded to
her, and that Boy was her very own darling, with no other "Muzzy" in the
world.
CHAPTER VI
Days went on, months went on, years went on, as they have a habit of
doing, till Boy arrived at the mature age of nine. Changes had occurred
during this period, which slight in themselves were destined to have
their lasting effect upon his character and temperament. To begin with,
Captain and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir had been compelled, through the force of
circumstances, to leave the house in Hereford Square, and give up living
in London altogether. The Honourable Captain's means had been
considerably straitened through his "little ways," and often and often
during occasional flashes of sobriety it would occur to him that Boy was
steadily growing, and that what a d----d pity it was that Miss Leslie
had not adopted him after all. Once or twice he had broached the subject
to his wife, but only to be met by a large placid smile, and the
remark--
"Jim, I really am surprised at you! I thought you had more pride. But
really you don't seem to mind the idea of your only son being put in the
position of a pauper!"
"Don't see where the pauper comes in," growled the Honourable Jim. "A
hundred thousand pounds is surely enough to keep a man from the
workhouse. And if that lot of money is going around begging, I don't see
why the little chap shouldn't have it. I've nothing to leave him,--why
the deuce don't you let the old lady take him and have done with it?"
"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, with a lachrymose air of deeply
seated injury, "if you are so lost to decency as to wish to part from
your own flesh and blood----"
"Oh, hang it all!" burst out the "Honourable" scion of century-condensed
aristocracy: "D----n your flesh and blood! Have it your own way! Do as
you d----n please! Only don't bother me."
In this way such marital discussions always ended,--and Boy struggled
steadily along in growth and being and thought, wholly unconscious of
them. He had lost sight of Miss Letty, but truly had not forgotten
her--though in the remote village on the sea coast where his father had
now elected to dwell in order that he might indulge in his pet vice
without undue public comment or observation, he found himself so utterly
estranged from all delicate and helpful sympathies as to be almost
rendered stunned and stupid. In the first year after he had left London
he was taught some desultory lessons by a stolid-faced country wench who
passed for being a nursery governess, but whose abilities were chiefly
limited to ogling the young sailor and farmer lads of the place, and
inventing new fashions for arranging her coarsely abundant hair. Boy's
contempt for her knew no bounds: he would sit and watch her out of the
corners of his eyes while she stood before a lookingglass, smirking at
her own reflection, and quite unwittingly he developed a curious vein of
satire which soon showed itself in some of the questions he put to her
and to others. A sad little change had taken place in him--the far-off,
beautiful angel look of his countenance had all but vanished, and an
expression of dull patience combined with weariness had taken its place.
For by this time of course he had found out the true nature of "Poo
Sing's" chronic illness, and the knowledge of it had filled him with an
inexpressible disgust and shame. Child though he was, he was not too
young to feel a sick thrill when he saw his father march into the house
at night with the face, voice, and manner of an infuriated ruffian bent
on murder. And he no longer sat in a chair innocently murmuring "Poo
Sing"--but slunk away from the evil sight, whispering faintly to
himself, "Father! Oh, father!" In dark corners of the house, and more
often outside the house in a wooded little solitude of pines, where
scarcely a bird's wings fluttered to disturb the dark silence, Boy would
sit by himself meditating, and occasionally reading--for he had been
quick to learn his letters, and study offered as yet no very painful
difficulties to him. He was naturally a boy of bright brain and acute
perception--but the brightness had been darkened and the perception
blunted by the ever down-pressing weight of home influences brought
about by his father's degradation and his mother's indifference. He
began to see clearly now that it was not without good cause he had felt
sorry for his "Muzzy's" ugliness, for that ugliness was the outcome of
her own fault. He used to wander down to the border of the sea,
mechanically carrying a tin pail and wooden spade, and there would sit
shovelling in sand and shovelling it out again; and while thus engaged
would sometimes find there one or two ladies walking with their
children--ladies in trim serge skirts, and tidily belted blouses, and
neat sailor-hats set gracefully on prettily arranged hair,--and he could
not for the life of him understand why his mother should allow her dress
to be less orderly than that of the cook, and her general appearance
less inviting and odorous than that of the old woman who came round
twice a week to sell prawns and shrimps at the door. And so he brooded
and brooded--till on one sudden and alarming day the stolid nursery
governess was found on his father's knee, with his father's arms clasped
round her,--and such an appalling clamour ensued that Boy, who was of
course not told the real reason of the disorder, stood terrified and
thought every one in the house had gone raving mad, and that he, poor
small chap, was left alone in the middle of a howling wilderness. The
stolid nursery governess, on being discovered, had promptly fainted,
and lay on the floor with her large feet well upturned and more than an
inch of stocking exposed;--the "Honourable" Jim rattled out all his
stock of oaths till he was black and blue in the face with impotent
swearing, and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, plumping heavily down in the nearest
convenient chair, lifted up her voice and wept. And in the middle of her
weeping, happening to perceive Boy standing on the threshold of the
room, very palefaced and half paralysed with fright, she caught him up
in her arms and exclaimed, "My poor, dear, injured son!" with a wifely
and maternal gusto that was more grotesque than impressive. Boy somehow
felt that he was being made ridiculous, though he could not have told
why. And when the stolid-faced nursery governess had prolonged her
fainting fit as much as was desirable and endurable,--when with many
grunts and sighs, spasmodic kicks and plunges, she righted herself, so
to speak, first into a sitting posture, and then gradually rose to her
feet, a tearful martyr to wrongful suspicions, and, with one
injured-innocence look of reproach at Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir and a knowing
side-wink at the irate and roaring "Jim," left the room and afterwards
the house, never to return, Boy lived for many days in a state of deep
wonderment, not knowing what to make of it. It was a vast puzzle to his
young mind, but he was conscious of a certain advantage to himself in
the departure of the ill-used young woman, who had so casually
superintended his few lessons in the intervals of dressing her hair. He
was left very much more alone, and took to wandering--"daunering" as the
Scotch would say--all about the village and down by the edge of the sea,
like a small waif of the world, neglected and astray. He was free to
amuse himself as he liked, so he strolled into all sorts of places,
dirty and clean, and got his clothes torn and ragged, his hands and face
scratched and soiled; and if it chanced that he fell into a mud-puddle
or a sea-pool--which he often did--he never thought of telling his
mother that he was wet through, because she never noticed it, and he
therefore concluded that it did not matter. And he began to grow thin,
and wiry, and brown, and unkempt, till there was very little difference
in appearance between him and the common boys of the village, who were
wont to haunt the sea-shore and pick up stray treasures in the way of
weed and shell and wreckage there,--boys with whom he very soon began to
fraternise, much to his detriment. They were not bad boys--but their
language was brutal, and their manners more so. They called him a
"ninny" when he first sought their society, and one big lout beat him on
the head for his too sharp discovery of a shilling buried in the sand.
But these were trifles; and after proving that he was not afraid of a
ducking, or a stand-up fight either, they relented towards him, and
allowed him to be an associate of their scavenger pursuits. Thus he
learnt new forms of language and new customs of life, and gradually
adopted the lazy, slouching walk of his shore-companions, together with
their air of general indifference, only made occasionally piquant by a
touch of impudence. Boy began to say sharp things now and then, though
his little insolences savoured more of satire than malice. He did not
mean to be rude at any time, but a certain vague satisfaction moved him
when he found that he could occasionally make an observation which
caused his elders to wince, and privately wonder whether their grey
hairs were not standing on end. He rather repressed this power, however,
and thought a good deal more than he said. He began to consider his
mother in a new light,--her ways no longer puzzled him so much as they
amused him. It was with almost a humorous condescension that the child
sat down obediently to his morning lessons with her,--lessons which she,
with much elaboration and importance, had devised for his instruction.
Truth to tell, they were very easy samples of learning,--her dense brain
was not capable of arranging anything more than the most ordinary forms
of study,--and Boy learnt more of the world in an hour's listening to
the chat of the fishermen on the quay, than his "Muzzy" could have
taught him in a hundred years. There was in particular one old, old man,
wrinkled and weather-beaten, whose sole life's business seemed to be to
sit on a tar-barrel and smoke his pipe, except when he gave a hand to
help pull in the fishing smacks as they came to shore laden with herring
or mackerel. He was known in the place by the nickname of "Rattling
Jack,"--and to him Boy would often go, and with half bold, half shy
questions would draw him out to tell stories of the sea, though the old
chap was not very fond of harking back to his past life and adventures,
and generally preferred to expound short essays on the conduct of life,
drawn from his long experience.
"Aye, there y'are," he said on one occasion, when Boy, with some pride,
brought for his inspection a beautiful rose-coloured sea-anemone which
he had managed to detach from the rocks and carry off in his tin pail.
"There y'are, you see! Now ye've made a fellow-creature miserable y'are
as 'appy as the day is long! Eh, eh--why for mussy's sake didn't ye
leave it on the rocks in the sun with the sea a-washin' it an' the
blessin' of the Lord A'mighty on it? They things are jes' like human
souls--there they stick on a rock o' faith and hope maybe, jes' wantin'
nothin' but to be let alone; and then by-and-by some one comes along
that begins to poke at 'em, and pull 'em about, and wake up all their
sensitiveness-like--'urt 'em as much as possible, that's the way!--and
then they pulls 'em off their rocks and carries 'em off in a mean little
tin pail! Ay, ay, ye may call a tin pail whatever ye please--a pile o'
money or a pile o' love--it's nought but a tin pail--not a rock with the
sun shinin' upon it. And o' coorse they dies--there ain't no sense in
livin' in a tin pail."
These remarks being somewhat profound, were rather beyond Boy's
comprehension, but he gathered something of their sense and looked
rather wistfully at his sea-trophy.
"Will it die now?" he asked anxiously.
"Av coorse it will! How'd you like to be off your own blessed rock, and
squeeged into a pail? Come now, tell me that! Wouldn't you kick the
bucket over?--Hor--hor--hor!" and the old man laughed hoarsely at what
he considered a bright and natural witticism--"an' die an' 'ave done
with it?"
"I suppose I should," answered Boy meditatively. "What do you do when
you die?"
"I ain't done it yet," replied Rattling Jack rather testily. "But I
expec' when I 'ave to, I'll do it as well as my betters--stretch out my
legs, turn up my toes, shut up my eyes, chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe,
and go slick off. There ain't no particular style o' doing it."
Boy stood staring, limp with horror,--Rattling Jack had been so
extremely realistic in his description--suiting the action to the word,
and the word to the action,--and at the "chuckle-chuckle in my windpipe"
he had made such an appalling noise that Boy felt it would be necessary
to run for assistance. But the venerable gentleman soon recovered from
his histrionic efforts, and refilling his pipe began stuffing the
tobacco well into it with the point of an extremely dirty forefinger.
"Ay, ay, there y'are," he went on. "Now wot are ye goin' to be yerself
when yer tries to knock up a riggin' in this wide world? There bain't no
place for boys in this old country, but away wiz yer to 'Meriker and
Canada. Ask yer father to send ye away to 'Meriker,--there's a chance
for ev'ry man to make a million there, an' come back a reg'lar bounder.
An' then ye can marry one o' they foine ladies wot's all dress an' no
brains. Simper-simper--slish-slish!--ah, they makes me sick, they do! I
tell yer," here he turned angrily round upon the astonished boy, "I tell
yer they makes me sick, they do! We don't see a-many of 'em 'ere, the
Lord be blessed for all 'is mussies, but if ever you goes to Lunnon----"
"I used to live in London," murmured Boy apologetically.
Rattling Jack looked at him in a kind of dull wrath.
"You! You little shaver! Come from Lunnon, do yer? Well, wot in the
world is yer doin' 'ere? Now tell me that!" Here lighting his pipe he
stuck it well between his yellow teeth, and turned round with a
fish-like glare in his eye upon the small boy before him. "Wot are yer
doin' 'ere?" he repeated. "Come now, tell me that!"
Boy meditated, finally he said,--
"I'm very sorry I can't tell you. I really don't know."
"Avast there!" said Rattling Jack. "A boy as don't know where 'e is, nor
wot 'e is, nor why 'e is, ain't no good as I can see. Chuck it!"
Possibly it may have been from the consideration of these scathing
remarks of Rattling Jack that Boy was moved one morning to ask his
"Muzzy" a perplexing question, which has often presented itself as the
profoundest of problems to most of the world's metaphysicians.
"Mother, what am I?"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, who had just settled herself comfortably in an
arm-chair to hear him read aloud a short summary, prepared by herself,
of some of the baldest and prosiest facts of our glorious English
history, gazed at him with a bland smile.
"Don't be silly, Boy!"
"I'm not silly," he answered, with a touch of irritation. "I want to
know what I really am--I mean, what is the good of me?"
"What is the good of you?" echoed "Muzzy," nodding her large head
abstractedly. "Are you not my son?"
"Yes, but I might have been anybody's son, you see," said Boy. "That
isn't it at all. I should like to know what I'm going to do with
myself."
"Of course you would," replied his mother with comfortable composure.
"Very natural, and very proper. But we can't decide that just now. When
you are older perhaps you shall go into the Navy."
Boy's face flushed, and his delicate brows contracted. His mother did
not understand him. But he had found out that it was no use arguing with
her.
"That's not what I meant," he said, and turned at once to his lessons in
resigned patience.
It was strange, he thought, but inevitable, that no one could be found
to tell him exactly what he wished most to learn. About God, for
instance,--who was that Personage really? He was afraid to ask. He had
been told that God had made him, and the world, and everything that was
in the world, and he was accustomed to say a little form of prayer to
this same God every night at bedtime, and every morning on rising--the
servant Gerty at Hereford Square had taught him to do so, and his
"Muzzy" had blandly approved of Gerty's religious zeal. But he had no
real conception as to Whom he was addressing himself. The sweet old
story--the grand story of the selfless Christ, had been told him in a
sort of vague and inconsequent manner, but he had not understood it a
bit. One of his petitions to Heaven, invented by Gerty, ran thus,--"Dear
Jesus, bless father, bless mother, make me a good boy, and save my soul
for Heaven, Amen!" But he had no sort of idea what his "soul" was, or
why it should be so carefully "saved for Heaven." What was the good of
his soul? And what was Heaven? Often he thought he would ask Rattling
Jack,--but he hesitated to do so lest that venerable cynic should empty
vials of wrath on his defenceless head for being in such a state of
ignorance. And so the days went on, and he was fast becoming used to the
companionship of the boy-scavengers on the beach, and the conversation
of Rattling Jack, when a sudden and glorious break occurred in the
clouds of his dull sky. Major Desmond came down from London unexpectedly
to see his father and mother, and to ask that he might be allowed to go
to Scotland and stay a whole month with Miss Leslie, at a beautiful
place she had taken there for the summer on the fairy shores of Loch
Katrine. He was amusing himself by the sea as usual, putting helpless
baby-crabs into a glass bottle, when his mother's maid-of-all-work came
hurrying down to find him, and seizing him suddenly by the arm, upset
the whole crab family all over the sand. But Boy made no remark of
either anger or sorrow as he saw his crawling collection scattered in
all directions,--they were not the only crabs, he reflected
philosophically--there were a good many more in the sea. And when he
heard that Major Desmond was waiting to see him, he was very glad,
though as a matter of fact he was not quite sure who Major Desmond was,
except that he was associated in his mind with an old magic lantern
which had fallen out of repair, and was shut up in a cupboard with the
worn-out boots of the household. He ran, however, as fast as his little
wiry legs would carry him, moved by curiosity and an eagerness that he
could not well explain, but made conscious, by the outcoming aura of
pleasurable sensations, that something agreeable was about to happen. He
forgot that he was dirty and untidy,--he did not know that he looked
neglected--so that he was utterly unaware of the reasons which caused
the well-dressed, handsome, burly old gentleman, with the white
moustache, to recoil a step or two at sight of him, and exclaim, "Oh
Lord!" accompanying the ejaculation with a low whistle. Major
Desmond?--of course he remembered him now!--he was the friend of that
far-off vision of his childhood, "Kiss-Letty." And rising memories began
to send the colour to his face, and the sparkle to his eyes, and the
tremulous curve to his lips, as he held out his grimy little hand and
said somewhat nervously,--
"How do you do, Major? Has Miss Letty come too?"
The Major recovered from the shock of dismay with which he had at first
contemplated the little sea-ragamuffin--and as he caught the look and
smile with which Boy accompanied his question he began to breathe again.
"No, she has not come," he replied, taking a grip of Boy's thin shoulder
with his strong yet gentle hand. "She is in Scotland. I am going over
there to shoot. And I want to take you with me if your mother will let
you come. How would you like to go, eh?"
Boy remained speechless. He could really have cried for joy at the
idea--but he had learnt to control his emotions. One of the special
"points" of his mother's character was the maternal delight she had in
refusing him any very special relaxation--she judged that as
"discipline," and used to say it was "a mother's duty" to see that "her
son" was not spoilt. So remembering this in time, he only smiled and was
silent. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, looking narrowly at him, smiled also,
condescendingly and complacently.
"Dear Boy! He doesn't want to leave me," she said, reverting to her old
idea that she had made herself an absolute necessity to his comfort and
happiness. "But I really think--yes--I think I should like him to go
with you, Major. A little change will do him good--he is growing so
fast----"
"Yes, by Jove he is!" agreed Desmond, looking at the little fellow with
a doubtful air; "and getting jolly thin on it too! What do you feed him
on, eh? Oh, never mind, we won't go into it if you'd rather not. A
little knocking round in the heather won't hurt him. Well, ma'am, if
you're agreeable I can take him at once--we can reach London this
evening and take the mail train up to-morrow."
And so with few words, to Boy's complete amazement, it was all settled.
He was told to go and get washed and dressed, and the good-natured
maid-of-all-work hearing these instructions, came to him in his little
room and scrubbed him down, and helped him into his only decent suit of
clothes, still of the "Jack Tar" pattern, and made by a country tailor.
The country tailor was the only one who had fitted Boy properly; all his
other clothes were stitched together loosely by Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, who
had "designed" them, as she said with much pride, and "cut" them, alas!
on the following of those designs. A few little shirts and socks were
crammed hastily into the very portmanteau Major Desmond had given him so
long ago, and the maid-of-all-work perceiving a loose box of toys in a
corner, containing she knew not what, put that in also--"for," she
muttered to herself, "they'll amuse him on a rainy day, and I've heard
it always rains in Scotland." And so before he had time almost to look
round, he had said good-bye to his mother,--his father was at the
public-house and it was not worth while sending for him,--and was in the
train with the Major sitting opposite to him--yes, there they were,
flying, rushing, flying along to London at the rate of fifty miles an
hour. He could hardly believe it; his head was quite confused with the
hurry and surprise of it. He felt a little shy too, and afraid; the
pretty confidence of his early days had quite disappeared. He peeped up
every now and then at the Major, and the Major in turn, over the edge of
a newspaper, peeped at him.
"By Jove, how the poor little beggar has been allowed to run wild!"
thought the good-natured gentleman, whom the passing of years had made
more good-natured than ever. "Looks like a ragged wastrel!" Aloud he
said, "Boy, old chap, do you know what I'm going to do with you when we
get to town?"
Boy smiled trustfully, because the Major looked so cheerful.
"No," he said. "You tell me!"
"I'm going to put you in a mild Turkish bath," pursued the Major. "Know
what that is?"
"No!" and Boy laughed.
"Thought not! Well, you'll know before you go to bed!"
Then came a silence, while the Major read his paper and the train rushed
on,--and Boy began thinking, or rather trying to think over the rapid
and amazing events of the day.
"I wish I'd said good-bye to Rattling Jack," he remarked suddenly.
"Oh, do you? And who the deuce is 'Rattling Jack?'" enquired the Major.
"He is just an old man," replied Boy--"oh, very old! But he is a good
talker and he amuses me often. He has seen a great deal of life."
At this observation Major Desmond folded up his newspaper, laid it flat
on his knee with a bang, and stared hard. "Seen a great deal of life!"
What an old-fashioned, weird, and preoccupied look the little fellow
had, to be sure! And how thin he was, and brown! What would Miss Letty
say of him when she saw him? Would she be glad she had not been able to
adopt him, or would she be sorry? These thoughts passed like small
lightning flashes over the Major's brain, and he gave a short impatient
sigh. But so far as he was personally concerned he meant to make the
best of it all, and on arriving in London that night he not only
fulfilled his intention of seeing Boy through a Turkish bath, but he
also took him to a tailor's establishment famous for ready-made
clothing, and "rigged him out," as he termed it, with everything that
was necessary for the son of a gentleman. And Boy slept soundly in the
little room assigned to him at the Major's bachelor flat,--his little
limbs, lately encrusted with sea-salt that had almost baked itself into
his tender flesh, were soothed and softened and rested by the rubbing
and polishing he had received at the Turkish bath,--a rubbing and
polishing which by-the-bye he had found intensely amusing and
delightful, and he slipped into his new little flannel nightgown with a
sense of ease and rest and light-heartedness that he had not felt for
many a long day. And in his sleep something that had seemed hard and
unchildish in him rolled away for the time being, for when he got up the
next morning and put on his smart little grey travelling suit and cap
to match, and his gold curls, rather short, but washed free of the
sea-iodine, were glistening with something of their old brightness over
his forehead, he looked more like the "Boy" of his babyhood than he had
done for months. He was himself conscious of an alteration in his
feelings,--Rattling Jack and his scavenger friends had all glided away
like a bad dream or a picture painted on a vanishing screen,--his smiles
came easily,--his step was brisk and light,--and while at breakfast with
the Major, his laugh rang out with almost as much sweetness and freedom
as in the old chuckling days of his affection for "Kiss-Letty." And
then, when they started for the north by the terrible train known as the
"Flying Scotchman," what joy!--what excitement!--what novelty! There was
the jolly guard with the strongest of Highland accents--what a splendid
fellow he was to be sure! Then there was the other man with the polite
countenance and the gold buttons on his coat, who came round
respectfully to take orders for luncheon-baskets en route,--he was a
very agreeable person too, especially when luncheon-time came and the
basket with it. Then there were the wonderful picture-papers with which
the Major provided him, together with a fascinating little hamper of
fruit, and a box of the finest chocolate. What a heavenly journey!--what
an almost inspired "rush" it was from London to Edinburgh--a flight as
of the gods! And when Edinburgh was reached, and the Major did not stop
there, but took another train on to a place called Callander, where Miss
Leslie's elegant landau awaited them, there followed a drive like a
dream through scenery that was surely as beautiful as any fabled
fairy-land. Crown upon crown of deep purple hills stretched softly away
into the evening distance of a golden sky as clear as amber,--glorious
trees nodding drowsily under a weight of clustering scarlet
berries--trees which the Major told him were called rowans in Scotland
and mountain-ash in England,--tufts and hillocks of heather almost
blazing like fire in the after-glow of the set sun--and a sweet
mysterious noise of rippling water everywhere--the noise of falling
"burnies" leaping from rocky heights, and trickling down into deep
recesses of coolness and shadow fringed with bracken and fern. And then
the first glimpse of Loch Katrine! That exquisite turn of the road which
charms the dullest spectator after passing the Trossachs Hotel,--with
Ellen's Isle standing like a jewel on the shining breast of the peaceful
water! Boy's long pent-up love of the beautiful found vent here in a cry
of ecstacy, and he stood up on the seat of the carriage to take in the
whole of the matchless panorama. His eyes sparkled,--his little face
shone with joy and animation; and seeing how he had almost smiled
himself into the real child he was again, the kindly Major was more
satisfied, and did not feel so much nervous dread of what Miss Letty
might say, when the carriage turned suddenly round into a fine avenue of
silvery birches and pine, and bowled up to the door of a long wide
house, covered with roses, and set on a terrace overlooking the Loch,
where stood the gentle lady upon whom the passing of time had scarcely
left a perceptible trace--Miss Letty, as serene and graceful as ever,
with the same beneficent look of welcome and soft dove-like glance of
eye. At sight of her, Boy let himself go altogether, and flinging
reserve and timidity to the winds sprang into her ready arms, and hugged
her tight, with a strong inclination to cry, so deeply was he excited.
Miss Letty was no less moved as she tenderly embraced him, and it took
her a minute or two to conquer her emotion. Then she said,--
"Dear Boy! I am so glad to see you! How you have grown!"
Boy laughed sheepishly and shamefacedly. How he had grown indeed! It
seemed quite a mistake to have done it. Why could he not always have
stayed a little child and looked at "booful pick-shures" with "Kiss
Letty"? And indeed no matter how much we are bound to believe in the
wise ordainments of a sublime and perfect Providence, we may ask whether
for many a child it would not have been happiest never to have grown up
at all. Honestly speaking, we cannot grieve for the fair legions of
beloved children who have passed away in their childhood,--we know,
even without the aid of Gospel comfort, that it is "far better" with
them so. If Boy had been an analyst of feeling he would have known that
deep in his sensitive consciousness there was a faint regret that he had
even become so old as nine years. It was the first pulsation of that
much crueller sense of loss and error which sometimes affects the
full-grown man, when looking back to the bygone days of his youth. But
Boy, though he was beginning to take himself into his own confidence,
and to consider carefully the results of giving way to emotion, had not
proceeded so far as to understand all the fine breathings of variable
thought that stirred his brain cells as the wind stirs ripples on a
pool; he only knew that just now he was both very glad and very
sorry--very glad to be again with "Kiss Letty," very sorry to have
"grown" so much as to be somewhat more removed from her than in former
time. He hung affectionately on her arm though now, as they went into
the house together,--and a sense of "home sweet home" gave his step
lightness and his eyes a clear sparkle, as he passed through the pretty
hall, adorned in Scottish fashion with great stag antlers and deer
heads, and bright clusters of heather and scarlet rowans set on the
table as well as in every corner where a touch of colour or brightness
seemed necessary,--and then up the broad, softly carpeted stairs to the
delightful room which had been prepared for him--a room with a wide
window commanding a glorious view of almost the whole glittering
expanse of Loch Katrine. And here Margaret awaited him--Margaret, as
comely and tidy as of old, with her kind face and spotless
apron,--Margaret, who met him with almost the same exclamation as Miss
Letty though tuned in different words.
"Bless the lad! How he has grown, to be sure!"
And again he blushed and smiled, and looked sheepish, and felt happy and
sad at once. But Margaret soon found out to his comfort and her own that
he was not so advanced in years and knowledge after all,--that he had
but slipshod notions as to the manner of washing his hands, and was apt
to perform that cleansing business in a very limp and halfhearted
fashion. Likewise he had little or no idea as to how he should brush and
comb his curly hair,--and it was greatly to Margaret's delight that she
found her services could not be quite dispensed with. She began at once
to "arrange" him according to her own particular way of "valeting" a
small boy, and presently turned him out to her entire satisfaction in a
becoming white flannel suit,--one of the halfdozen Major Desmond had
bought him on the way through London,--with a soft blue tie knotted
under his little open collar, and the bright waves of his hair disposed
to the best advantage. Very sweet and very wistful too the little fellow
looked as he then went down to dinner; and Miss Letty's eyes grew dim
with a sudden moisture, as she glanced at him from time to time and
noticed, as only a loving woman can, the slight indefinable alterations
in him, which, like the faintly pencilled lines in a drawing, were bound
to become darker, and gradually to take their place in the whole
composition of his life and character. Major Desmond had told her
exactly the condition in which he had found him, and as she heard, her
heart grew heavy and sore. Why, she thought, if his parents were going
to do no more than allow him to run wild among the common boys of a
village sea-shore, could they not have given him the chance she had
offered? She said something to this effect in half a dozen words to her
old friend Dick, who, with a puzzled tug at his white moustache and a
shrug of his broad shoulders, gave the matter up as a sort of difficult
conundrum.
"But it's the mother, Letty,--it's the soft, fat, absurdly
self-important mother!" he declared. "Tell you what, Jim D'Arcy-Muir,
besotted with drink as he is, knows he is a beast, and that is a great
point in his favour. When a man knows he is a beast and admits it, you
can give him credit for honesty if for nothing else; and Jim, I firmly
believe, would hand you over the little chap at once, and be glad
enough to give him such a jolly good start in life. But Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir--there!--she's a beast too and she doesn't know it, which
makes all the difference. She's not a beast in drinking--no--but she's a
beast in her sloth and love of muddle and dirt and confusion, and worse
than a beast in stupid obstinacy. No one can do anything with her. She
will always be a drag on Boy's wheel!"
"His mother?" suggested Miss Leslie gently.
"Yes, I know. She's his mother, more's the pity. The days are coming
when he will despise his mother--and that is a very bad look-out for any
chap. But it will not be his fault--it will be hers."
Miss Leslie said no more on the subject just then,--she had Boy at any
rate for a month to herself, and she resolved to watch him closely and
study his character for herself.
She began a close and tender observation of him,--his manners, his
little quaint ways of speech,--and for the first week of his stay with
her she noticed nothing to awaken her anxiety. The change from his
"scavenger" life on the sea-shore to the elegance and refinement of Miss
Letty's home, combined with the beauty and freshness of an open-air
existence in the Scottish Highlands, gave Boy for the time a happy
oblivion of all his recent sordid experiences. Fishing, boating,
climbing, and riding on a lovable little Shetland pony which his kind
hostess had bought for his use--these new and delightful pastimes, so
enjoyable to healthy childhood, were all his to try in turn,--and
whether he was rushing like a little madcap to the top of a convenient
hill to catch a first sight of Major Desmond as he came down from the
higher moors with the rest of the shooting-party,--or whether he was
helping Miss Letty gather great picturesque bunches of bracken and rowan
branches in the woods for the decoration of the house, Boy was
unthinkingly and unquestioningly happy. Winsome and bright, he behaved
like the real child he truly was in years; he had no time to go away by
himself into little corners and think, for there was a boy named Alister
McDonald, two years older than himself, who struck up a friendship with
him, and had no sort of idea of leaving him alone. This same Alister was
a terrible person. He too was an only son,--but his father, Colonel
McDonald, was not a "Poo Sing," but a very fine specimen of a gentleman
at his best. He and his wife, a woman of bright disposition and sweet
character, had brought up their boy to love all things bold, manly, and
true--and Alister had developed the bold and manly by doing everything
in the world that could risk his life and get him into a pickle--and his
present way of serving the Cause of Truth was to go and tell everything
to his mother. The very first day he made acquaintance with Boy, he
stuck his small hands in his small trouser pockets and remarked
airily,--
"I suppose you're game for any sort of a lark, ain't you?"
"I suppose I am!" Boy answered, with a touch of reserved assurance.
"All right! Then we'll be pals!" Alister had answered, and to prove his
sincerity, took Boy at once in charge, and escorted him straight away
to a mysterious salmon-pool, where, trying to angle with a long willow
wand, a bit of string, and a just killed wasp instead of the orthodox
fly, they both very nearly fell in and made an end of their lives. To be
the hero of hairbreadth escapes suited Alister perfectly. He always had
some dark scheme in his mind--some new plan for generally alarming and
exciting the neighbourhood. But as a matter of fact all the people in
the place had got pretty well used to the endless scrapes of "Maister
Alister" as they called him, and even his mother, whose nerves had
undergone many a severe trial concerning the delinquencies of her only
darling, had now become more or less resigned to the inevitable. Two or
three days of each other's society were enough to make Boy and Alister
inseparables,--and many a hearty roar of laughter did their strange
adventures on hill and moor, by stream and loch, cause Major Desmond and
his sporting friends,--while kind Miss Letty, with two or three other
pleasant ladies who were her guests, laughed with them, and quickly
forgave the little truants all their mischief.
One day there came a pause in the merriment,--the heroic Alister was
seized with a raging toothache, a malady which might even upset the calm
of an Ajax. There was nothing for it but to have the worrying tooth
pulled out, whereupon Alister's mother took him to Edinburgh for the
necessary operation. It was a dull, cloudy sort of day,--rain had set
in early in the morning, and a furious gust of wind swept the fair
waters of Loch Katrine, and bent the silvery birches to and fro till
they presented the weird aspect of shivering white ghosts, stooping to
bathe their long tresses in the waters, and anon lifting themselves
again in attitudes as it seemed of wild despair at the pitiless storm.
There was no possibility of either walking or driving or boating, and
Alister being away, Boy was rather at a loss what to do with himself.
Miss Letty saw him looking a little wistful and wearied, and at once
took him in hand herself. Putting her arm around him she said,--
"What shall we do to amuse ourselves, Boy?"
Boy smiled faintly.
"I don't know!" he said.
"Do you like pictures as much as you used to do?"
Boy hesitated.
"Some!" he said dubiously. "Not all!"
"Did you bring your magic lantern with you?"
Boy opened his eyes wide.
"Oh no! That's all gone to pieces long ago!"
Miss Letty made no comment on the magic lantern's destruction.
"Well, let's ask Margaret what there is among your things to amuse
ourselves with," she said cheerily. "All sorts of odds and ends were
packed with your clothes!"
"Were there?" said Boy. "Mother didn't pack them--it was the servant."
Again Miss Letty made no comment, and Boy holding her by the arm went
with her to Margaret, who, on being questioned, smiled, and opened a
cupboard full of curious-looking objects.
"They're all more or less broken, my leddy!" she said. "But the Cow is
here as good as it ever was!"
"The Cow!" and Miss Letty laughed, but a little moisture suffused her
eyes.
Boy looked at her questioningly.
"What's the Cow?" he asked.
"Ah, darling, you have grown to be such a little man now that you don't
remember the poor Cow!" said Miss Letty half laughingly, half sadly.
"Where is it, Margaret?"
Margaret selected it from the heap in the cupboard, and gave it gingerly
into the hand of her mistress--the same wise-looking quadruped, with its
movable head wagging as faithfully as ever.
Boy looked at it with a smile that was almost derisive.
"That a Cow!" he said.
"Yes," said Miss Letty, "and you thought it a very nice Cow when you
were a little child. But you have grown so big now--though you are only
nine years old. Oh, don't you remember!--you used to call it 'Dunny'?"
Boy's face brightened with a sudden look of recognition.
"Oh, yes! I remember now!" he said, and he gave a fillip with his finger
to the head of the despised "Dunny" to set it wagging faster. "That was
when I was quite a baby!"
"Yes," said Miss Leslie, sorrowfully, "when you were quite a baby!"
She held the Cow in her hand tenderly--she would not put it back among
the broken toys. But she said no more about it just then. The only thing
they found among the mass of rubbish which had been thrust into Boy's
portmanteau so hastily by his mother's maid-of-all-work was a German
War-game, which Boy proposed to play with Miss Letty.
She acceded, and together they went down to her own boudoir, where she
placed "Dunny" on a little bracket above her writing-desk, and then
applied herself to master the game of killing as per German military
tactics. Boy proved himself an extraordinary adept at this mechanical
warfare, and won all along as triumphantly as if he had been the Kaiser
himself. Indeed, he showed an extraordinary amount of cunning, which,
though clever, was not altogether as lovable and childlike as Miss Letty
in her simplicity of soul could have wished. There was a vague
discomfort in her mind as she allowed herself to be ignominiously
beaten. For though the game was only a game, it had its fixed rules
like every other, and Miss Letty was sorely worried by the fancy--it was
only a fancy--that Boy had been trying to "cheat" in a peculiarly adroit
fashion. She would not allow herself to dwell upon the point, however,
and when she put away the game, and took him to tea in the drawing-room,
where two of the ladies staying in the house were sitting with their
needlework, and listening to the howling wind and gusty rain, she gave
him a little chair by the side of the bright fire, which was necessary
on such a chilly day in Scotland, and let him talk as he liked, and
generally express his sentiments. For some time he was very silent,
contenting himself with tea-cake and scones, and only occasionally
remarking on the absence of Alister McDonald, and the suffering he was
perhaps undergoing with his tooth; but after a bit he began to ask
questions, and unburden his mind on sundry matters, encouraged thereto
by one of the ladies present, who was interested by his winsome face,
clear eyes, and light, trim little figure.
"What are you going to be when you are a man?" she asked.
Boy considered.
"A man is a long way off," he answered gravely. "And, you see, you can
never tell what may happen! Dads is a man. But he isn't anything."
"He's an officer in the Army, dear," corrected Miss Letty gently: "a
retired officer,--but still an officer."
"What is the good of being an officer if you retire before you ever
fight?" asked Boy.
All the ladies smiled, but volunteered no answer.
"You see it wouldn't be any use," went on Boy reflectively. "I shouldn't
care to have to learn how to fight if I wasn't ever wanted to do it. I
think I'd rather be like Rattling Jack!"
"Who on earth is 'Rattling Jack'?" asked the youngest lady present,
suppressing a laugh.
"He is an old man at home," explained Boy. "He used to be on a merchant
vessel, trading to India, Japan, and China, and all that, and he says he
has seen nearly the whole world. People say he's got a lot of money
hidden away in his mattress--and that when he was in Ceylon he managed
to steal a ruby worth ten thousand pounds! Fancy! Wasn't that clever of
him? And he's got it still!"
"Then he's a thief!" said Miss Letty, trying to look severe. "It isn't
at all clever to steal. It's very wicked! He must be a bad man!"
"Yes, I suppose he is," said Boy with a little sigh. "But of course the
person from whom he stole the ruby ought to have come after him. But he
never did. So that was lucky! And some people say it's only a bit of red
glass he's got!"
"Whatever it is, a bit of glass or a ruby, he had no business to steal
it!" said Miss Letty.
"Oh, but he hasn't been found out," answered Boy. "And he doesn't mind
telling people he's got it!"
There was a pause. Miss Letty was a trifle vexed,--the other two ladies
were merely amused.
"I'll tell you another thing about him," said Boy, suddenly warming into
confidence. "He buys things off us!"
They all laughed outright.
"Buys things off us!" exclaimed Miss Letty. "Oh, Boy dear, what do you
mean?"
"Well, you see, all along the shore there are the most curious things
washed in from the sea," said Boy--"silver spoons and forks, and
penknives, and boxes, and sometimes money. Just before I came away I
found a gold bracelet in the sand, and Rattling Jack gave me
one-and-sixpence for it, and he had it cleaned, and it was solid gold,
and he sold it for three pounds. Wasn't that clever of him?"
Again the laughter broke out, but Miss Letty sighed.
"I don't think 'Rattling Jack' is quite a nice person for you to talk
to," she said. "Does your mother know anything about him?"
"Oh, no! Mother doesn't know anybody!" answered Boy candidly. "I make my
own friends!"
"Well, we don't want you to be a Rattling Jack!" said the young lady who
had before spoken. "We want you to be a brave, honest man, and a
gentleman! You must try for the Navy--not the Merchant Navy, but the
regular fighting Navy--the Queen's Navy!"
"Yes--but you never get higher than 'Admiral' there!" said Boy, with a
matter-of-fact cynicism. "Rattling Jack told me that was just an honour
without sufficient pay to keep it up. It isn't worth working for, I
fancy!"
"My dear Boy!" exclaimed Miss Letty, distressed. "Not worth working for!
How did you get such ideas in your head? What is worth working for?"
"Oh, I don't know!" said Boy. "Not much, I expect. All you can do is to
amuse yourself, and you want lots of money for that!"
The pained expression deepened on Miss Letty's sweet old face, but she
could say nothing just then, as a diversion was created by the sudden
bouncing entrance of Alister McDonald, accompanied by his mother, both
damp with rain, but both with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, back
from Edinburgh, and fresh from their drive through the storm from the
Callander station.
"Please excuse us!" laughed Mrs. McDonald. "But we thought you might be
having tea about this time, so we risked coming in!"
Miss Leslie welcomed them heartily, with the unaffected sincerity which
was her great charm, and ordered fresh tea and scones; while Alister,
drawing Boy aside, related to him with graphic picturesqueness of detail
his thrilling experiences at the dentist's.
"He said, would I have gas? I said, what is gas? And mother said it was
a stuff you took through a tube, and you went off stiff and silly, and
didn't know what was going on! And I said no, I wouldn't have gas. I
liked to know what was being done to me anyhow! 'It will hurt you, sir,'
said he. I said 'All right; it hurts now.' 'Sit in this chair,' he said,
'and keep still.' I sat in a big chair with a sort of iron swivel on to
it, and I laid my head back, and opened my mouth wide. And he looked in.
And I thought of the execution of Charles the First! Then he said, 'Now,
sir, steady!' Then I shut my eyes and repeated in my head,
The boy stood on the burning deck,
When all but him had fled!
and before I got to 'fled' out came the tooth with a big prong at the
end. And I never cried. And he said to me, 'Did it hurt you?' 'Not a
bit,' said I. But of course it did. Only he wasn't going to crow over
me--not if I knew it! And he didn't. He looked pretty small, I can tell
you, with that tooth in his nippers. My! What scones! Such a jolly lot
of butter!" And his conversation terminated abruptly in a huge bite of
the succulent material offered to him by one of the ladies already on
duty to attend his budding masculinity.
Boy watched him enjoying his tea with wonder and a touch of envy. He too
would have bidden defiance to the terrors of the dentist as carelessly
as Alister, but it would have been out of sheer indifference, not
combativeness. Here was the contrast between the temperaments of the two
boys, and a very serious contrast it was. The slight affair of Alister's
tooth was a test of character. Boy would have gone through the painful
ordeal with quiet stoicism because he would not have considered it worth
while to do otherwise,--Alister went through it with the idea that
somehow or other he was more than a match for the dentist. Herein was
the varying quality of environment which would make of the one boy a
warm-blooded, courageous man, and of the other perhaps a languid cynic.
Young as the children were, any close student of human nature could
trace the diverging possibilities of each mind already, and the
uncomfortable little pang at Miss Letty's heart was not hurting her
without some cause. However, she was not of a morose or morbid
disposition, and she would not allow herself to give way to these first
premonitions of doubt as to Boy's development. She resolved to make one
more effort to rescue him from his uncouth home surroundings, and
meanwhile she contented herself with letting him enjoy his holiday as
much as possible, and giving him all the liberty he seemed to need.
One day, however, there occurred a grand catastrophe. Major Desmond had
left his gun in the hall, with express orders that it was not to be
touched. But just about an hour before dinner there was the sound of a
tremendous explosion, and a crash of glass,--and on a contingent of the
household running to see what was the matter, lo! there was the Major's
gun in the same place and position, but a charge was missing, and one of
the windows in the hall was shivered to atoms. The Major had a temper,
and he lost it for the immediate moment.
"Now, who has done this?" he shouted. "Didn't I give express orders that
my gun was to be left alone! By Jove, whoever has been meddling with it
ought to have a sound thrashing! Might have killed somebody, besides
breaking windows! Come now! Who did it?"
There was nobody to answer. The servants were all at a loss,--Boy and
Alister were out in the grounds, so it was said,--no one had touched the
gun,--it must have gone off by itself.
"D----d nonsense!" roared the Major, forgetting the presence of Miss
Leslie, who stood looking at the broken window in perplexity,--"I put
the gun up in a safe corner out of harm's way. If it had gone off by
itself the charge would have lodged in the ceiling, not through the
window. I am not such an ass as not to see that! Some one has been
playing pranks with it! Where's Boy?"
"Oh, Boy wouldn't touch it," protested Miss Letty, "I'm sure he
wouldn't!"
"Well, where is he?" persisted the Major: "he may know something about
it!" and marching outside the door he called, "Boy!" in a voice strong
enough to awaken all the fabled sleeping giants of the hills.
Boy answered the call with quite an amazing promptitude.
"Yes, Major!"
The Major stared.
"Where did you come from so suddenly?" he demanded. "You young rascal!
You have been meddling with my gun!"
"I'm sure I haven't!" replied Boy coolly.
"Then who has?"
"How can I tell?" said Boy, with airy indifference.
"Boy!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Look at me straight!"
Boy obeyed. The clear eyes met the Major's stare without flinching.
"You swear on your honour--now, sir, remember! I am a soldier, and 'on
your honour' is a very serious thing to say--swear on your honour that
you never touched that gun!"
Boy hesitated--just a second's pause. And suddenly a high piping voice
called out,--
"Own up, Boy! Own up! Don't be caddish!"
Boy flushed crimson to the roots of his fair curls, and cast down his
eyes. He had no occasion to speak. The Major's face grew grave and
stern.
"You may go, sir!"
"Oh, Boy!"
The cry came from Miss Letty, and Boy tried to shuffle past without
looking at her, but she caught him by the arm.
"Boy," she said, her sweet voice shaking with suppressed excitement,
"how could you tell a lie?"
He stopped--uneasily shifting one foot against the other, and keeping
his eyes cast down. She stretched out her soft, kind little hand.
"Come with me," she continued. "Come and talk to me alone, and tell me
why you were so wicked, and then we will go and ask the Major's pardon."
She looked at him steadily. And her sweet face, and tender eyes full of
tears, were more than the child's unnatural stoicism could bear. His
little chest heaved--his lips quivered.
"I---- I----" and he got no further, but broke down in a wild fit of
sobbing. Miss Letty put her arm round him, and gently led him away. The
Major, who had stood grim and rigid in the hall, watched her go, and
coughed fiercely, unaware that the ubiquitous Alister McDonald was
standing on the threshold of the hall where the little scene had taken
place, and was watching him inquisitively, with his little hands in his
little trouser pockets as usual.
"Hullo, Major!" said this imp: "Don't you cry!"
"Eh--what? Cry! Me! God bless my soul! Go to---- the North Pole with
you!" snapped out the Major irascibly. "What business have you here,
sir, staring at me?"
"Oh, come now, I say," returned the unabashed Alister. "Don't be raspy!
I suppose I can look at you as well as anybody else, can't I? I like
looking at you!"
The Major gave a short laugh.
"Oh, you do, do you!" he returned. "Much obliged to you, I'm sure!"
He coughed again, laughed, chuckled--and then settled his features into
gravity.
"Now, look here, you scamp," he said, resting his big hand on Alister's
small shoulder: "How did it happen?"
"Well, we were playing soldiers," explained Alister, "and I was the
Britisher, and he was the Britisher's enemy. He was half starved, and he
had to get behind an entrenchment. The entrenchment was the hall, and he
was in a terrible way, because you see he had no water, no food, and he
was run down with fever and ague. You see, I was the well-fed Britisher,
and I had everybody looking after me, and all the world watching what I
was going to do,--and I had prayers put up for me in all the churches,
and he was only a savage and a brother. But he said, 'I have got a way
to surprise you,' said he, and he turned a somersault, and he said,
'Yah!' as savages do, you know,--and he ran behind his entrenchment (the
hall door), and just without thinking took up the gun and fired it
through the window. I was lying low, waiting attack, and I was nearly
killed--not quite--and then he was frightened, and ran out, and he said,
'We'll be brothers,' and we hid in ambush, and then you called----"
"Yes, that's all very well!" said the Major, suppressing his strong
desire to grin at this account of warfare; "But why did he tell a lie?"
"Oh, I suppose because he was the enemy!" replied Alister calmly. "You
see, in the camp he had nobody watching him, and no churches to pray for
him,--he was only a savage! I expect that's what it was!"
The Major looked reflective.
"Well, now you had better go away home," he said. "There'll be no more
fighting or games between Christian brotherhoods to-day. Boy will have
to be punished."
Alister's small face became exceedingly serious.
"I say, don't be hard on him!" he said, expostulatingly. "He's such a
little chap!"
The Major preserved his solemnity.
"He's only two years younger than you are--quite old enough to know how
to tell the truth!"
"Has he got a mother?" asked Alister.
"Yes."
"Well, you see, she isn't here, and he can't go and ask her about it, so
perhaps he got a bit muddled like. I hope you will let him down easy!"
The Major bit his lips under his fuzzy white moustache, to hide the
smile that threatened to break into a roar of laughter, as the young
gentleman, after giving expression to these sentiments, sauntered off
somewhat dejectedly; and then, turning into the house, put away the gun
that had been the cause of all the mischief, and went round to the
stables to devise some means of stuffing up the broken window in the
hall for the night. And his thoughts were touched with sorrow as well as
pity.
"Unfortunate little chap!" he muttered. "Once let him take to lying, and
he is done for. All the Lettys in the world could not save him. I wonder
now how the devil he came to begin it? It is not his first lie--he did
it too well, and looked too cool for it. I should like to know how he
began!"
And this was just what Miss Letty was finding out, bit by bit, as she
sat in her own quiet room with Boy on her knee clasped in her arms, and
talking to him gently. She heard all about his life on the sea-shore,
and the little scavengers he met there who had taught him how clever it
was to "do" people, and to cheat, and generally mislead and deceive the
simple and unsuspecting,--and as she listened to the strange moral
axioms he had picked up, and gradually gathered from him as he talked
some idea of the lonely life he led, uncared for and untaught, save in
the most superficial and slipshod fashion, her heart warmed to him more
and more with an almost painful tenderness, and when with a short sigh
he paused in his disjointed narrative, the tears were heavy in her
eyes. She set him gently down from her knee and kissed him.
"We'll say no more about it, Boy," she whispered. "Run to the Major and
tell him you are very sorry, and that you will never tell a lie again."
Boy hesitated a moment. Then, impulsively throwing his arms round her
neck and kissing her, he ran quickly away. He found the Major in the
billiardroom reading his newspaper and smoking, and went straight up to
him,
"I'm very sorry, sir," he faltered.
Major Desmond laid down his paper and looked at him full in the face,
with the straight steel-blue eyes that had in them as much command as
tenderness.
"Sorry for what?" he demanded,--"For touching the gun, or for telling a
lie?"
Boy's heart swelled, and his eyes were misty and aching.
"For both, sir," he said.
The Major held out his hand, and Boy laid his own little trembling hot
fingers in that cool clean palm.
"That's right!" said Desmond: "Disobedience is bad, but a lie is
worse,--don't do either! Is that agreed?"
"Yes, sir!"
Boy answered bravely enough, but his spirit sank as he thought that if
he never disobeyed, his obedience, instead of a virtue, would oblige
him to do the most foolish and unnecessary things under his mother's
orders,--and if he never told a lie, his hours of freedom and play would
be considerably if not altogether curtailed, and he would be made the
poor little peg on which his parents would hang their many quarrels and
discussions. The Major noticed the touch of hesitation in his answer as
well as in his manner, and did not like it. But he repressed his own
forebodings, and smiled cheerily down upon the small forlorn lad in whom
lay the budding promise of a man who might, or might not, be fit for
good fighting in the combat of life.
"When you are bigger and stronger I'll show you how to handle a gun," he
said,--"At present you are too small a chap. You would blow yourself
into bits as easily as you blew out the hall window. Now come along with
me and I'll show you the birds we got to-day."
He strode out into the grounds, and Boy followed him with an odd mixture
of feeling. Sorrow and shame, united to wonder and scorn, put him into a
mental condition not easy to explain. To his childish mind it seemed
difficult to understand why Major Desmond and Miss Letty should be such
straight, honest, sober folk, and his own father and mother such
shiftless, indifferent, careless people.
"They don't seem to see that a boy can't do just as well with a father
who doesn't care about him, as he could with a father who does!" he
mused. "I suppose I'm bound to be a lonely boy!"
And he trotted on in silence beside the Major, and looked at the
beautiful shot grouse and blackcock, and was very attentive and docile
and respectful, and the Major felt a twinge of pain in his good heart as
he realized that Boy had plenty of material in him for the making of
worthy manhood, material which was being thrown away for want of proper
management and training. He confided his feelings on this subject to
Miss Leslie that night, in the company of a brother officer, some years
younger than himself, who had few joys left in life save the love of
sport and a good game of chess or billiards. Captain Fitzgerald
Crosby--or "Fitz" as he was generally called--was a fine, upright
personage, with a most alarmingly grim and rigid cast of countenance
which rather repelled timid people on first introduction. He was "a
cross-looking old boor" with all the ladies until he smiled. Then such a
radiance played in his quiet grey eyes, and such a kindness softened the
lines of his mouth and smoothed away the furrows of his brows, that he
was voted a "darling" instantly. On this occasion, when Major Desmond
started off expatiating on the waste of Boy's life, and Miss Letty
paused in her knitting, listening to his remarks with sorrowful
attention, Fitz looked particularly glum handling his billiard cue
thoughtfully, and staring at its point as though it were a magic wand to
conjure with.
"There's a good deal of waste everywhere, it seems to me," he said
slowly. "The scientific fellows tell us that nothing is wasted in the
way of matter,--every grain of dust and every drop of dew has got its
own special business, and is of special use; but upon my word, when you
come to think of the finer things--love and hope and goodness and
charity and all the rest of it, it seems nothing but waste all along.
There's a great waste of love especially!"
The Major coughed, and hit a ball viciously.
"Yes, there's a great waste of love," went on the unheeding and still
gloomily frowning Fitz. "We set our hearts on a thing, and it's
immediately taken from us,--we work all our days for a promising son or
a favourite daughter, and they frequently turn out more ungrateful than
the very dogs we feed--and as Byron says, 'Alas, our young affections
run to waste and water but the desert!' Byron was the only poet who ever
lived, in my opinion!"
Major Desmond gave a short laugh.
"Upon my word, Fitz, you're a regular old croaker this evening, aren't
you? You're making our hostess quite miserable!"
"Oh no," said Miss Letty, brightly, for with her usual sweetness she
never thought of her own "wasted young affections" at all, but only of
the disappointments of her friends, and she knew that Fitz had suffered.
"I feel with Captain Crosby, that some things are very hard for us to
understand. But I think myself that just as no drop of dew or grain of
dust is wasted, so no kind action or true love is wasted either. It may
seem so,--but it is not. And let us hope poor Boy will be all right. But
he certainly ought to be sent to school. I think"--here she paused and
looked up smiling--"I think I shall have another try."
The Major paused in his game, while his friend Fitz glowered sullenly at
the balls.
"You will, Letty? You mean you will try to give the little chap another
chance of proper education?"
"Yes, I think so," said Miss Letty, bending over her knitting, while her
needles clicked cheerily in her small, pretty hands. "I will write very
earnestly to both Captain and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, and make a perfectly
plain, practical, business proposal to them. If they refuse it, well, I
shall have relieved my feelings by asking."
A sudden radiance seemed to illuminate the billiard-table, but it was
only Fitz smiling across it.
"Just like you, Miss Letty," he said. "Whenever there is something good
to be done you are the one to do it!"
Miss Letty shook her head deprecatingly and went on with her knitting
for a while,--then presently she retired to bed after sending in
whiskies and sodas to the two gentlemen to refresh themselves while
finishing their game. Fitz had turned crusty again, apparently. Jerking
his head backward towards the door through which Miss Letty had
disappeared after saying her gentle good-night, he demanded,
"Why didn't you marry her?"
"Because she wouldn't have me," replied the Major promptly.
"Why wouldn't she have you?"
"Because she is keeping faith with a dead rascal. Expects to meet him
somewhere in heaven by-and-by! Lord, if ever a liar and scamp deserves
to wear a crown of gold and sing 'Hallelujah,' then Harry Raikes is a
real live angel and no mistake!"
"Upon my word!" said Fitz slowly, "I think it's liars and scoundrels
generally who consider that they're the very people fitted for gold
crowns in heaven. Now I don't expect a gold crown. I don't consider
myself worth an angel's feather, let alone a pair of angel's wings. But
I have a pious uncle--old as Methuselah--who goes to church three times
a day and slangs all his neighbours who don't--and will you believe me,
he has an idea that God is thoroughly well pleased with him for that.
What a blasphemous old beggar it is!"
He laughed, and in his enjoyment allowed the Major to win the game at
billiards. Then putting up his cue he mixed a mild glass of whisky and
water and drank it off.
"I'll go to bed now, Dick," he said; "I don't stay up as late as I used
to!"
"We're getting on, Fitz, that's why," replied Desmond. "We're getting
on, that's what it is."
"Yes, that's what it is," returned Fitz cheerily. "But I really don't
mind. Getting on means getting out--getting out of this world into a
better. Good night, old chap!"
"Good night!"
And the two worthy fellows went to their respective rooms and slept the
sleep of the just. But there were two other people in the house who
could not sleep at all that night--these were Miss Letty and Boy. Miss
Letty was grieving for Boy, and Boy was grieving for himself. What was
she to do about Boy? Miss Leslie thought. What was he to do about
himself? Boy thought. Miss Letty felt that if she could only get Boy
away from his home surroundings, and place him at a good English
preparatory school, she would perhaps be the saving of him. Boy felt
that if he could only run away somewhere on one of those ambitious
expeditions which Alister McDonald was always telling him about, he
might, to put it grandly, make a career. But the world was broad and
wide, and he was very small and young. Difficulties bristled in his
path, and he had not the heart nor the strength to face them even in
thought. The spark of an aspiring intelligence was within him, but the
influences were all against its kindling up into a useful or brilliant
flame.
The next day saw him again at play with Alister, and the two boys went
out on Loch Katrine together in a boat to fish for trout. They were not
very skilled fishermen, and there was a good deal more splashing about
with the line, and patting the water with the oars than anything else.
They stayed wobbling about on the friendly lake till sunset,--and then
as they saw the majestic king of the sky descend into the west, glorious
in panoply of gold and crimson, with fleecy white clouds rolling
themselves into a great canopy for his head, and a wide stretch of
crimson spreading beneath him like a carpet for his march downward, both
the children were suddenly overcome by a sense of awe, and watched the
brilliant colours of the heavens, and the purple shadows of the
mountains reflected on the water, in silence for many minutes.
"I say, Boy, what are you going to be?" asked Alister, after a long
pause.
Boy answered with truth, "I don't know."
"I'm going to be a soldier," said Alister. "It's a fine thing to be a
soldier. Though father says a soldier can't get a drink if he wants to,
unless he takes off his uniform first. Isn't that battish? But whenever
we have another war we're going to keep our uniforms on and drink in
them whenever we want to."
"And will you go and fight?" asked Boy wistfully.
"Rather! Let me hear any one abusing England, and I'll run them straight
through with my sword in no time!"
"Will you--really?" And Boy looked respectfully at Alister's round face,
already seeing the martial hero in the saucy physiognomy of his
friend,--the sparkling eyes, the defiant little nose, and the chubby
dimpled chin.
"When you're a soldier, you're a defender of the country," went on
Alister, "and the Queen says, 'Thank you very much, I hope you'll do
your duty!' And you get medals and things, and the Victoria Cross.
That's what's called a V.C. I know a man who's got that, and he's just
as proud as Punch. He's one of father's friends. But he's awfully
poor--awfully. And he's got rheumatism through having slept out several
nights on a field of battle--and he's all cramped and funny, with
twisted legs and crooked fingers, but he's just as proud as Punch of his
V.C."
Boy tried to grasp the picture of a gentleman who was "all cramped and
funny, with twisted legs and crooked fingers," who was "just as proud as
Punch." But he could not do it. And Alister putting up his oars said,
"Let's have some music!" and forthwith drew out a concertina from the
bottom of the boat and discoursed thereon a wailful ear-piercing melody.
Boy had heard him play this distressing instrument before, but never
quite so dolefully. The melancholy snoring sounds emanating from between
Alister's fat fingers seemed to cast a gloom over the landscape--to make
the mountains around them look darker and more eerie--to give a
melodramatic effect to the sinking sun, and to suggest the possibility
of bogies and kelpies trooping down on the Silver Strand to perform a
fantastic dance thereon. Alister thought his own playing quite
beautiful; Boy considered it lovely too, but dreadful. When he could
bear it no more he ventured to disturb the performance.
"I say, Alister!"
Alister's eyes had closed in a dumb ecstacy over a particularly
prolonged and dismal chord, but he opened them quickly and stopped
playing.
"What?"
"How do you start being a soldier?"
"You go to school first--preparatory," said Alister, putting away the
concertina, much to Boy's relief. "I'm there now. Then you go to a
regular public military training school, and you learn heaps and heaps
of things,--then you are measured and weighed, and your chest is thumped
and your teeth looked to, then if that's all right, you perhaps go to
Sandhurst, and then you pass all sorts of stiff exams. In fact," said
Alister, warming with his subject, "you learn everything! There's
nothing that you're not expected to know. Think of that! And you must
keep your teeth all right, and your chest sound, and you must grow to a
certain height. Oh, there's lots to do all round, I can tell you!"
"I see!"
Boy's heart sank, but he determined to ask to be sent to school directly
he went home again. He would not, if he could help it, remain under the
tuition of Rattling Jack.
"Aren't you going to school?" queried Alister.
"I hope so."
"Come to mine," said Alister. "It's awfully jolly,--we play cricket and
football and hockey, and we have supper-fights and no end of larks. Ask
your father to send you to mine. I'll give you the address when we get
home."
"Thanks," said Boy, with an attempt to look as if the going to Alister's
school would be the easiest thing in the world,--"I will see if I can
come."
Poor little lad! He had no more hope of being sent to Alister's school
than of being carried off in a fairy boat to the moon. But he thought a
great deal about school that night when he had parted from his chum.
"I'll tell mother I want to go to school," he said to himself. "That can
do no harm. If she won't send me I'll have to run away."
Meanwhile Miss Leslie wrote long and very earnest letters to both
Captain and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir. Once more she offered to make Boy her
heir, on condition that she should be allowed to take care of him, and
control his education. Her letters arrived at their destination when the
"Honourable Jim" was snoring the hours away in a heavy drunken sleep,
and naturally Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir read the one intended for her husband as
well as the one addressed to herself. She smiled a fat smile as she
consigned the one written to Jim ("Like her impudence!" she murmured to
herself) to the convenient flames, and resolved to say nothing about it
("For the education of my son," she said, "is my affair!"). She laid her
large hand on her large breast with an approving and consolatory pat. To
be a "mother" was a great thing.
"Silly old woman!" ejaculated Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, her stout bust heaving
with matronly offence. "She has lost all her own matrimonial
chances--she would insist on sticking to the memory of Harry Raikes--and
there she is, of course, all alone in the world, and wants my boy to be
a son to her. Poor dear child! A nice time he would have of it, a slave
to an old maid's fads and fancies!"
So she sat down and wrote the following letter. She had a shocking
handwriting,--it sloped downwards and sideways all over a sheet of
paper, in very much the way her mind sloped and went sideways
likewise:--
"MY DEAR LETITIA,
I am sorry to see from the tone of your letter that you are still
feeling so lonely. Of course it is very hard for you to be all
alone at your age, and I am very sorry for you. But to part with my
son to you as you suggest is quite out of the question. A mother's
claims are paramount! I am sure you would be very nice to him, and
the dear boy deserves everything that can possibly be done for his
advantage, but his mother must preside over his education. I am
sure that, though unmarried yourself, you will see the force of
this. If, however, you still decide to make him your heir, I am
sure he will be very worthy of it, and always remember you
affectionately after you are gone. We shall expect our son home
next week, and hope that Major Desmond will be able to escort him.
Yours very sincerely,
AMELIA D'ARCY-MUIR."
This letter was the charter of Boy's doom. Not all the stars in their
courses would be able to alter his fate from henceforth. Miss Leslie
cried quietly to herself in her room for nearly an hour,--then bathed
her eyes, smoothed her hair, and attended to her household duties as
placidly and sweetly as ever. She never spoke to Boy at all on the
subject. To Major Desmond and his friend Fitz she said simply,--
"I wrote to Boy's mother and father. But it is no use!"
"I thought not!" said the Major gruffly.
"Poor little chap!" said Fitz.
And by tacit consent they dropped the subject.
But one day before Boy went back to his loving parents, Miss Leslie took
him out by himself for a walk with her through the beautiful Pass of
Achray, and there sitting down by the dry and fragrant heather
brilliant with bloom, she talked to him gently, holding his little grimy
hand in her own.
"Boy," she said, "if you ever want anything, will you write to me? You
can write now, can't you?"
Boy nodded, looking a trifle pale and startled.
"Suppose," went on Miss Leslie, feeling something like a wicked
conspirator as she suggested it,--"Suppose you wanted to go to school
and your father wouldn't let you, do you think--do you think--you could
run away to me?"
And the gentle lady's soft cheeks crimsoned at the audacity of this
proposal.
But Boy's eyes glittered. This was like one of Alister's adventures.
"Yes," he replied breathlessly, "I'm sure I could!"
"Well, well--we will hope that won't be necessary," said Miss Leslie
hastily. "You mustn't of course ever do such a thing unless you are
quite driven to it. But if you are in trouble of any sort write to me,
and I will--I will meet you anywhere." This with a hazy notion that if
it were the North Pole she would somehow manage to be there.
Boy threw his arms round her neck and kissed her.
"Oh, you are good--good!," he said: "I wish I were your Boy!"
Miss Letty patted him with a trembling hand--but was silent.
The bees buzzed drowsily in the heather bells,--the blue sky was
flecked with beautiful white clouds, and the lights and shadows changed
the aspect of the mountains every few minutes. A little "burnie"
chattered at their feet, gurgling over the stones and pebbles, and
chuckling among the ferns and grasses, and over its silver ribbon-like
streak two gorgeous dragon-flies chased each other, the sunlight
flashing gold upon their iridescent wings.
"I wish I could stay with you altogether," said Boy, taking off his cap
and ruffling his pretty fair hair with his hands in a sort of nervous
agitation--"I feel so happy with you! See how lovely it all is
to-day!--God seems really good out here!"
"God is really good always, darling," said Miss Letty.
"Yes, I suppose He is--but where we are He doesn't seem good a bit. The
people are dirty and miserable and poor,--and even the sea looks cruel!"
"Poor Boy!" murmured Miss Letty to herself, quickly understanding the
sense of loneliness and bitterness which sometimes overpowered the
child's mind. Aloud she said, as cheerily as she could,--
"That's only fancy, Boy! Everything is good and beautiful in the world
as God made it and intended it to be; it's only the bad dispositions and
wickednesses of men that make things seem difficult. But if you are good
and straightforward everything will come right, and you will perhaps
understand why you are sometimes a little bit sad and lonely now. I
daresay it's all for the best...." She paused, because in her own clear
soul she could not think it was quite for the best that the little
fellow should have a drunken father and a sloven mother. "Promise me one
thing, Boy," she went on,--"Never tell a lie. Liars come to no
good,--and when you go to school--for I expect you will go to
school--you will find that all nice English boys are brought up to be
frank and true, and to stand upon their honour. If a boy tells a lie to
shield himself, he is looked upon as a coward by all his school-fellows.
Remember that! No matter what scrapes you get into, tell the truth right
out, without the least fear, and you may be sure you are doing well.
Even if you get punished, a day's punishment is much better than a lie
on your conscience."
Boy listened reverently.
"I'll remember," he said.
"That's right!" And Miss Letty took him again in her arms and kissed
him--"God bless you, dear! Try and grow up a good man! You will have a
great many troubles and difficulties, I daresay--we all have; but go on
trying--try always to be a good brave man!"
Boy returned her embrace with fervour, and promised. After this they
went home, and the end of the week saw Boy back again in the remote
fishing village with his mother only. His father had gone away on a
yachting trip with a friend as fond of the bottle as himself, and some
unkind people said what a good thing it would be if the yacht should go
down quietly in the waves and make a speedy end of the two
convivialists. Boy was personally rather glad of his father's absence,
as he thought it gave him a better chance to discuss things with his
mother. For the first one or two days after his return he was very
reticent,--he did not say much about his holiday in Scotland--but only
mentioned his little friend Alister McDonald.
"Who is he?" demanded Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir.
"Oh, he's just Alister McDonald," answered Boy.
"Don't be stupid, Boy. I mean who is his father?"
"Does that matter?"
"Matter! Of course it matters. Family is everything. You must belong to
a good family for you to be anybody."
"Must you? Then how about Robert Burns?"
"Robert Burns?" Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's mouth opened in astonishment.
"Yes," went on Boy dauntlessly,--"I heard all about him in Scotland.
They're always talking about him. Robert Burns was a ploughman--and he
wrote such beautiful things that everybody, even now, though he is dead
ever so long ago, wants to try and make out that they're connected with
him in some way or other. Is that what you mean by a good family?"
"No, I don't--certainly not!"--snapped out his mother. "Robert Burns was
a very disreputable person. People who write poetry usually are. I
didn't ask you who Robert Burns was. I asked you who your friend
Alister's father was."
"Colonel McDonald," answered Boy,--"of the Gordon Highlanders."
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir "looked up" his regiment at once, and found that
Colonel McDonald was a very distinguished person indeed--quite good
blood, in fact--really quite. Whereupon she graciously approved of
Alister as Boy's friend; and Boy, emboldened by this, said,--
"Couldn't I go to school where Alister is, mother? I do want to go to
school!"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir asked the name of the school, and when she heard it,
pursed her lips together dubiously. It was a famous school, and an
expensive one. It boasted of some of the finest teachers in England,
whose services were not to be had for nothing.
"I'll see about it," she said grandiloquently,--"I'm not sure I should
approve of that school. But of course you must go to school
somewhere--and I'll arrange it for you as soon as I can."
Having put the idea into her head, Boy waited with tolerable equanimity.
He would write, he thought, to Miss Letty when everything was settled.
In the meantime his mother, in her own peculiar pig-headed way, set to
work reading all the advertisements of cheap schools in all the papers,
and hit upon one at last that particularly seemed to appeal to her,--one
which provided knowledge with physical and moral training for life
generally, at the humble cost of about twenty pounds--board and lodging
were included--a year. That would do, she resolved. An exchange of
letters between herself and the proprietor of this "first-class
educational establishment" soon settled the matter--"for," said Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir, "there is no occasion to consult Jim. He is too sodden with
whisky to know what he is about--he will have to pay the money,--and I
shall have to get it out of him, and--and that's all."
And one morning she informed Boy of his approaching destination.
"I have managed a school for you, Boy," she said. "I'm getting your
clothes ready, and next week you are going to France."
"France!" cried Boy, and his little heart sank almost into his little
boots.
"Yes, France!" said his mother. "There's a charming school at a place
called Noirville in Brittany, and I have arranged for you to go there.
You'll learn to speak French, which is always a great advantage to a
boy. Why, what are you crying about?"
Poor Boy! He tried hard to keep back his tears, but it was no use--and
the more he fought against them, the faster they fell.
"Oh, mother, mother!" he said, at last giving way to his sobs, "I did
want to be a real English boy!--a real, real English boy!"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's little eyes almost shot out of her head in the
extremity of her staring astonishment.
"What a ridiculous child you are!" she burst out at last. "How can you
be anything else than a real English boy? Isn't your father English? Am
not I--your mother--English? And were you not born in England? Good
gracious me! I never heard such nonsense in my life! Silly cry-baby! Do
you think going to school in France will alter your birth and your
nature?"
Boy choked back his sobs, and controlled his tears,--but not trusting
himself to speak, he went straight out of his mother's presence, and ran
as hard as his little legs could carry him down to the sea-shore. There
he sat, a forlorn little figure, on the sand close to the fringe of the
sea, and tried to think. It was a difficult task, for he was too young
to analyse his own emotions. His hazy idea that he could not possibly be
'a real English boy' if he went to school in France was purely
instinctive--he knew nothing about foreign countries or foreign customs
of education. But he was hopelessly, bitterly disappointed,--deplorably,
cruelly cast down. He knew it would be no use appealing to his mother.
And he did not know where his father was. Even if he had known, he could
have done nothing with that estimable parent. It seemed very useless to
try and do one's best, he thought. Since he had come back from Scotland
he had been so thoroughly determined to follow Miss Letty's precepts--to
attempt by small degrees the work of becoming 'a good brave man,' that
he had avoided all the dirty little scavenger-boys of the place he had
used to foregather with, and he had not even been to see Rattling Jack.
He had remained nearly all day with his mother, doing the lessons she
gave him to do, and obeying her in every trifling particular, and had
been most gently docile and affectionate in his conduct. The silly
woman, however, had taken all his loving attention as a proof that he
had found Miss Leslie so 'faddy,' and her house in Scotland so dull,
that he was glad and grateful to be at home again with 'his own dear
mother,' as she herself put it. And now---- she was going to send him
away to France! His wistful eyes scanned the ocean and the far blue line
of the distant horizon,--there was a storm coming up from the north, and
the first gusts of wind ruffled the waves and gave them white crests,
over which three or four seagulls flew with doleful screams, and Boy's
heart grew heavier and heavier. Presently he got up from the sand,
dusting his little clothes free from the sparkling grains.
"It's no use," he said hopelessly,--"it isn't a bit of use! I shall
never be anything--neither a soldier nor a sailor, nor anybody. But I'll
write to Miss Letty."
He had begun to retrace his steps homeward, when he saw a figure coming
along the stretches of sand,--a figure that stooped and shuffled, and
carried a basket on its back. Boy recognized it as the visible form and
composition of Rattling Jack, and went straight up to it.
"Hullo, Jack!" said he with a little smile.
The old gentleman turned his bent head round on one side.
"Who be ye?" he demanded. "My back is that stiff with rheumatiz, and my
neck is that wincy that I can't lift myself up anyhow!"
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Boy, in his sweet little childish voice.
"Couldn't I carry your basket for you?"
Stiff in the back and "wincy" in the neck as he declared himself to be,
Rattling Jack did manage to raise his stooping figure a little at this
question, and to stare through fuzzy tangles of hair, eyebrow, and
whisker at his small friend, whom he gradually recognized.
"Oh, it be ye, be it?" he grunted then, not unkindly. "Ye went to
Scotland, didn't ye, awhile sen?"
"Yes," said Boy. "And--and--next week I'm going away again,--to
school."
"That's right!" said Rattling Jack approvingly. "That's the best thing
for yer! There be nothin' like a good English school for boys----"
"But it isn't an English school!" said Boy. "I'm going to France----"
"Fra--ance!" roared the old seaman. "What d'ye know of France?"
"Nothing!" said Boy dispiritedly. "I shall be all alone out there,--and
I don't speak a word of French!"
Rattling Jack surveyed him for a few minutes in grim silence. The
situation appeared to interest him, for he unslung his basket and set it
down on the shore. Whatever the basket's business, it was evident it
could wait. Then partly straightening himself with an effort, he said
slowly,--
"Who be sending ye to school in France?"
"My mother," responded Boy.
"Poor little devil! May God help yer," said Rattling Jack with hoarse
solemnity; "for ye'll come back never no more!"
"Oh yes; I shall come back for the holidays, I suppose," said Boy
practically.
"Stow that!" said Jack, with a sudden stentorian vigour which was quite
alarming. "What's 'olidays! Yes, ye'll come back mebbe for 'olidays, but
it won't be you!"
"Won't be me?" echoed Boy wonderingly. "It must be me!"
"It can't be!" persisted Jack,--"France ain't a turnin'-out
establishment for Englishmen. Never a bit of it! Ye'll go to France a
poor decent little chap enough as yer seems to be, but ye'll never come
back that way,--ye'll come back a little mincin', lyin' rascal,
parly-vooin' like a hass, an' hoppin' like a frog! That's what ye'll be.
Ye'll be afraid of cold water, and skeered-like at the sight of yer own
skin--and ye'll never look any livin' creetur in the face agin! And
ye'll be a dirty, mean, creepy-crawly little Frenchy--that's what ye'll
be!"
"No, I won't!" cried Boy, quite appalled at this vivid picture of
himself in futuro. "Don't say I will! I know you've travelled a lot,
and that you've seen France----"
"Seen France!" And Rattling Jack snorted indignation at the air.
"Rather! And seen Frenchmen too! And licked them into the bottom of
their own shinin' boots! Seen France! Yes!--it's a great place for
frogs--hoppin' round, and all alive oh!
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Thank you marm, kindly, but frogs 'as eaten me out of 'ouse and 'ome an'
garden too! Hor--hor--hor!"
And Rattling Jack began to indulge in those deep, uncouth sounds which
he produced as laughter. Always deeply impressed by his own wit, he
liked to appreciate any joke he thought he had perpetrated to its full
extent and flavour, and Boy waited patiently till his 'hor--hor--hor'
decreased in volume and died away in a snuffle.
"Yes, I'm sure you're quite right about France," he then said
timidly--"because you have been there. But you see, I can't help it. I
shall have to go there if my mother sends me!"
Rattling Jack laid a big hand on Boy's small shoulder.
"Yes, I suppose you'll hev to do as yer mother bids. I don't know yer
mother, and don't want to. If I did, mebbe I'd give her a bit o' my
mind. What I thinks is this--that the ways of natur are best, and in the
ways of natur mothers don't interfere when they've done their nussin'.
See!" And he stretched out an arm with a roughly eloquent gesture
towards the ocean, where the seagulls screamed and flew--"They birds has
to take the rough-and-tumble of the storm and the sea. Born and bred in
a hole of the cliffs, they've got to larn to fly--and larn they do,--and
when they flies, they flies their own way--they takes it and they keeps
it! And so with all birds and animals 'cept man. Man's the idiot of the
universe, always a worritin' of himself. He wants his chillun to be just
like himself, and a mussiful Lord makes 'em as different as chalk from
cheese. For which let's be joyful! And when they wants to go their own
way, man, the idiot, pulls 'em back, and says, 'you shan't!' An' then
it's more than likely old Nick steps in an' says, 'you shall!' And away
they go, straight to the devil! When I was a boy I took my own way--and
wal!--here I am!"
"And do you like yourself now?" asked Boy respectfully.
"Like myself? Of course I like myself! I ain't got no one else to like
me, so why shouldn't I like myself?"
"I like you," said Boy,--"I always have liked you! I think you so--so
clever!"
Rattling Jack was not often shaken from the cynical attitude he chose to
assume towards all mankind, but this innocent remark certainly touched
him in a weak spot. He was not insensible to flattery,--and the evident
fact that Boy did not intend to flatter, but spoke with the simple
conviction of his own heart, moved the old seafarer to a sudden stirring
of more fervent feeling than was customary with him.
"Ye've a good deal o' sense for a little chap," he observed
condescendingly, "and I don't mind sayin' that I've rather took to ye.
Now, look'y 'ere! If ye don't want to go to school in France, why don't
you do as they seagulls do, and fly away?"
"Fly away!" repeated Boy,--"you mean, run away!"
"Fly or run, it's all the same, bless yer 'eart!" said Jack. "Get out
of yer little hole in the rock and spread yer wings to the sun and the
breeze! Hain't yer got any friends?"
"Yes, I've one very good friend," said Boy, thinking of Miss Letty.
"She's a very kind lady, and I'm going to write to her. But you see if I
ran away I should be brought back again--I'm not very old--I'm not quite
ten yet."
"Not quite ten, ain't yer!" said Jack, suddenly becoming conscious of
the extreme youth and helplessness of his small friend. "That ain't
much, for sartin! Wal!--look 'ere,--I'll tell you what I'll do for
ye--I'll give ye a tiger's tooth!"
Boy stared.
"Will you?" he said. "What's it for?"
"A tiger's tooth," said Jack solemnly, "takes the owner through the
forests o' difficulty. A tiger's tooth protects him agin his enemies!
Mark that! Take it with ye to France! A tiger's tooth bites traitors! A
tiger's tooth! Lord love ye!--a'most anythin' can be done with a tiger's
tooth! Look at it!"
He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a shining white object of
pointed ivory.
"That come from Bengal," he said. "An' 'e as give it to me was what they
call a ma-geesan! He could swallow sarpints and fire quite
promiskus-like,--seemed his nat'ral food. An' 'e sed to me, ses 'e,
''Ere's a tiger's tooth for ye,--keep it in mem'ry of the world-famous
Oriental conjurer Garoo-Garee!' And then 'e guv a screech an' was gone!"
Boy listened to this interesting narrative with awe. "What a wonderful
man!" he said. "And his name was Garoo-Garee!"
"Just that!" answered Jack. "Will ye have the tooth?"
"Indeed I will!" said Boy gratefully, taking the mystic talisman out of
Jack's horny palm--"you're awfully good to me! I'm ever so much obliged!
And if I have to go to France, I will come and see you directly I get
back."
Rattling Jack shouldered his basket again slowly, and with difficulty.
"No, ye won't!" he said dismally. "No, ye won't think no more o' me
among they Frenchies. God bless my 'eart! An' not yet ten ye ain't! Wal,
good-bye to ye! I'll not be seein' ye agin in this mortal world,--so
I'll just think o' ye kindly, as a little chap wot's dead!"
Boy's heart sank, and his young blood seemed to grow cold.
"Oh, don't do that, Jack!" he cried; "don't do that!"
"I must," said Jack with dreary gravity, looking a melancholy figure
enough as he stood on the wet sand, with the gray storm-clouds scudding
overhead, and the wind tossing his scanty white locks of hair. "For when
a child is a child he's one thing--and when he ain't, he's another.
First there's a baby--then there ain't no baby, but a child,--and the
baby's gone. Then by-and-by there ain't no child, but a boy--and the
child's gone. Then, afore ye can so much as look round, the boy's gone,
and there's a man. Argyfyin' my way, ye see baby, child, boy is all
gone, which is to say, dead--for what's bein' dead but gone, and what's
bein' gone but dead? And only the man is left, which is generally a poor
piece of work. There's wise folk writin' in the newspapers wot calls it
ever-lotion, but wot it is the lotion's good for, God only knows. Anyhow
I've seen a darned sight many more decent chillun than I have men. Which
it proves that the chillun is dead. But my talk is too deep for ye--I
kin see that! Ye poor little skinny white-faced chap,--ye can't be
expected to understan' Feel Osophy."
"No," said Boy humbly, "I'm afraid I don't quite understand. But I hope
you'll think of me just as if I were here,--you see you have given me
the tiger's tooth--and I shall never forget you!"
"M'appen the tooth will do somethin' in the way of nippin' the memory,"
said Jack thoughtfully,--"mebbe so! Good-bye t'yer! There's a cloud just
a-goin' to burst in the sky, and ye'll be drenched to the skin afore ye
knows where ye are!" and he turned up his quaint old physiognomy to the
darkening heavens, from which already big drops of rain were beginning
to fall. "Run 'ome, little 'un! Run 'ome! That mother o' yourn 'll be
down on ye if ye wets yer clothes. Shake 'ands?" For Boy had timidly
extended his small hand. "Sartinly!" And the old man grasped the tiny
child fingers within his own rough dirty ones. "For it's a long
good-bye! Sartin sure of that I am! Don't let 'em make a frog of ye out
there in France, if ye can 'elp it. Good-bye! I'll just think o' ye as
if ye were dead!"
The rain now began to fall in heavy earnest, and Boy could not stop to
protest further against this obstinate final statement of his seafaring
friend. He put the tiger's tooth in his pocket, smiled, lifted his cap,
and ran, a little light figure flying across the sand, some of his curls
escaping loose and gleaming like the sunshine that was now lacking in
the sky. Rattling Jack stood still and watched him go, heedless of the
rain that began to drift in sweeping gusts round and round him. The sea
uprose and lashed the flat shore with fringes of yellow foam, angrily
murmuring and snarling like some savage beast of prey. But Jack heard
nothing, or if he heard, he did not heed. Equally he saw nothing, but
that small child figure racing through the rain over the glistening
sand, till at the corner of an old jetty where the mists of the land and
sea hung low like a curtain, it turned and disappeared.
"There ye go!" said the old man, talking to himself--"there ye go--away
for ever! An' the rain fallin', and the mists a-gatherin'. There ye go!
The way of all the chillun--a bit of sunshine, and then the mist and
the rain! There ye go--and good-bye to ye! Ye wor a nice little
chap--quiet, yet speerety-like--a nice little chap ye wor, an' I'll
think o' ye kindly, as if the good God had took ye,--just as if ye wor
dead!"
CHAPTER VII
The next day Boy shut himself up in his own little bedroom and wrote a
letter to Miss Leslie. He was a long time about it, and he took infinite
pains to spell carefully. The result of his anxious thought and trouble
was the following epistle:--
"MY DEER FREND MISS LETTY
I am gowin to skool nex week you will bee sory to heer it is not a
skool in England like Alister Macdonald it is in France ware I have
never bin I am sory to tell you I do not like to go thare. Mother
expecs me to speek French but I am sory to tell you I do not feel I
shall speek very quikly the new langwige if you cood do enny thing
to safe me from the skool in France I wood be glad I am afrade
Mother will send me before you can cum my close are been packt and
I am to bee put on boord a ship to the Captain who is to give me to
the skool I am very sory and cannot help cryin if I cood run away
wood you meet me enny ware I wood like to see you I think of deer
Skotland and Alister and Majer Desmond, pleese give my luv and say
I have to go to skool in France Alister will be very sory as he
alwas sade he wood fite the french the plase is called Noirville
(Boy wrote this very roundly and carefully) in Brittany and the
master takes boys who are cheep mother says I am afrade I shal not
see you deer miss Letty I am your lovin frend
BOY."
This letter finished, and put in an envelope, Boy carefully addressed it
in a very big round hand to Miss Leslie at her house in Hans Place, and
then went down to his mother to ask for a penny stamp.
"Whom have you been writing to?" she demanded, with a touch of
suspicion.
For one instant Boy was tempted to answer,--"To Alister McDonald," but
he resisted the temptation bravely. He had promised his dear Miss Letty
never to tell a lie again after the fatal affair with the Major's gun.
So he answered frankly,--
"To Miss Letty."
His mother dived into the depths of a capacious pocket, and opening a
very bulgy purse, produced the required stamp.
"There you are," she said graciously; "I hope you have written her a
nice letter."
"Oh yes, mother!"
"Well, leave it outside on the hall table. I have some letters to write
too, and they can all go together."
Boy obeyed. He would have liked to go and post his letter himself, but
his conscience told him that were he to ask to do so it would look like
doubting his mother's integrity.
"It will be all right!" he said to himself, though there was just a
little sinking at his heart as he placed it where he had been told.
"Mother wouldn't touch it."
He hung about for a while, looking at the precious epistle, which to him
involved so much, till, hearing his little shuffling feet in the hall,
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir grew impatient.
"Boy!" she called.
"Yes, mother."
"Come here. I want you to wind off this worsted for me."
Boy went to her, and meekly accepted the thick hank of ugly grey wool
she offered him, and stretching it out, as was his custom when he had to
do this kind of duty, on the back of a chair, he set to work patiently
winding it off into a ball. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir meanwhile wrote two
letters, and sealed them in their respective envelopes. Then she took
them out into the hall, and Boy heard her call the servant to take all
the letters to the post.
"Is mine gone too?" he asked, as she re-entered.
"Of course! Do you think your mother could be so careless as to forget
it?"
Boy said nothing, but went on winding the grey worsted till he had made
a neat, soft, big round of it,--then he handed it to his mother and
ventured to kiss her cheek.
"My own Boy!" she said gushingly. "You do love me, don't you?"
"Yes, mother. Only--only-----"
"Only what?"
"I wish you were sending me to a school in England. I don't like going
to France!"
"That's because you don't know what is for your good, dear!" said Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir, with a magnificent air. "Trust to mother! Mother always
does everything for the best!"
Boy made no answer, but presently went away to his room and took down a
book in large print, which Major Desmond had given him as a parting
gift, entitled "Our Country's Heroes,"--in which there were some very
thrilling pictures of young men, almost boys, fighting, escaping from
prison, struggling with wild beasts, climbing Alpine heights, swimming
tempestuous seas, and generally distinguishing themselves,--and as he
turned the pages, he wondered wistfully whether he would ever be like
any one of them. He feared not; there was no encouragement held out to
him to be a "country's hero."
"Alister McDonald will be doing great things some day, I'm sure!" he
said to himself. "He's full of most wonderful ideas about killing all
the country's enemies!"
And while he thus pored over his book and thought, his mother opened his
poor little letter to Miss Leslie ("For it is a mother's duty!" she said
to herself, to excuse her dishonourable act to a trusting child) and
read every word two or three times over. She had of course never
intended it to be posted, and when she had gone into the hall to
apparently give the servant all the letters for the post, she had kept
it back and quietly slipped it into her pocket. As she now perused it,
her whole large figure swelled with the "noble matron's" indignation.
"What a wicked old thing that Leslie woman must be!" she exclaimed,--"A
perfect mischief-maker!--she has poisoned my son's mind! He would
evidently run away to her if he could! How fortunate it is that I have
intercepted this letter! Not that it matters much, because of course I
should have soon put a stop to the old maid's nonsense, and Boy's too.
Stupid child! But it isn't his fault, poor darling--it's the fault of
that conceited old thing who has put all these foolish notions into his
head. Really, a mother has to be always on her guard!"
With which sagacious observation, she posted Boy's letter to his "deer
frend" into the fire. Then, satisfied that she "had done a mother's
duty," she called Boy, and asked him if he would like a game of draughts
with her. He nodded a glad assent, and as he brought out the board and
set the pieces, he looked so bright and animated that his mother
"swelled" towards him as it were, and shed one of her slowest, fattest
smiles upon him.
"I shall be very lonely without you, Boy!" she said plaintively,--"No
nice little son to play draughts with me! But it's for your good, I
know, and a mother must always sacrifice herself for her children."
She sighed in bland self-admiration, but Boy, not being able to argue on
the duties of mothers, had already made his first move on the
draught-board, so she had to resign herself with as good a grace as she
could to the game, which she had only proposed by way of a ruse to
take Boy's mind off any further possibility of its dwelling on the
subject of his letter to Miss Leslie.
But Boy thought of it all the same, though he said nothing. Day after
day he waited anxiously for a reply,--and when none came, his little
face grew paler, and his brows contracted the habit of frowning. One
morning when his mother was just opening some letters of her own which
had arrived by the first delivery, she looked up and said smilingly,--
"Have you heard from Miss Letty yet, Boy?"
Boy looked at her with a straight fearless glance, which, had she been a
little less mean and treacherous and poor of soul than she was, might
have made her wince.
"No, mother!"
"What a shame!" and Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir settled herself more comfortably in
her chair, still smiling. "But you see, she's getting rather an old
lady now, and she can hardly be expected to write to little boys!"
"She promised me she would always answer me if I wrote to her!" said
Boy, his small mouth set and stern, and his eyes looking quite tired and
pained--"She promised!"
"And you believed her?" his mother queried carelessly. "Poor dear child!
Yes, of course! So nice of you! But you will have to learn, dear, as you
grow older, that people don't always keep their promises!"
"I can't think Miss Letty would ever break hers!" said Boy slowly.
His mother laughed unkindly.
"What a touching faith you have in her!" she said, and laughed again.
"Such a little boy!--and quite in love with such an old lady! Oh, go
along, Boy! Don't be silly! You really are too absurd! Miss Letty has
got quite enough to do with counting up her money and looking after the
interest of it, without bothering to write to you!"
"Is she very rich?" asked Boy suddenly.
"Rich? I should think she is indeed! Do you know"--and she smiled
blandly--"she wanted to give you all the money she has got!"
"Me!" exclaimed Boy, and stared breathlessly.
"Yes--you! But then you would have had to go away from me, and be like
her son instead of mine! That would have been quite dreadful! And
of course I could not have allowed such a thing!"
Boy said not a word. He grew a little paler still, but was quite silent.
"And then," went on Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir graciously, "you would have had all
her thousands of pounds when she was dead!"
This word broke up Boy's unnatural composure.
"Dead! When she was dead! Oh, I don't want Miss Letty to die!" he said,
the colour rushing up hotly to his brows. "No--no! I don't want any
money---- I wouldn't have it--not if Miss Letty had to die first! I
would rather die myself!"
And unable to control his rising emotion, he suddenly burst into tears
and ran out of the room.
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir gazed after him helplessly. Then rising, she paced the
room slowly to and fro with elephantine tread, and sniffed the air
portentously.
"He's getting quite unmanageable! I'm thankful--yes, thankful that I
have decided on that school in Brittany, and the sooner he goes the
better!"
Meanwhile Boy was crying quietly, and by himself, in his room.
"Oh, Miss Letty!" he sobbed--"Dear Miss Letty! You wanted me to be
your Boy! Oh, I wish I was!--I wish I was! Not for all the money--I
don't want any--but I want you! I want you, Miss Letty! Oh, I do
want you so much! I do want you!"
Alas, the Fates, so often invincibly obstinate in their particular way
of weaving the web of a life, and sometimes tangling the threads as they
go, were apparently set dead against any change for the better occurring
in this child's destiny,--and no "occult" force of sound, or other form
of spirit communication was vouchsafed to Miss Letty concerning the
troubles and difficulties of her little friend. And the day came when
Boy, to quote the ancient ballad of Lord Bateman,
"Shipped himself all aboard of a ship,
Some foreign countries for to see."
A solitary little figure, he stood on the deck where his mother had left
him after "seeing him off," somewhat doubtfully received and considered
by the captain of the said ship as a sort of package, labelled, and
needing speedy transit--and as he saw the white cliffs of England
recede, his heart was heavy as lead, and his soul full of bitterness.
Not for his mother or father were his farewells--but for Miss Letty. To
her he sent his parting thoughts,--to her he silently breathed the last
love, the last tenderness of his innocent childhood. For his trust in
her remained unbroken. She would have answered his letter, he knew, if
she had received it. He felt instinctively certain that it had never
been posted,--and when once this idea took root in his young mind, it
bore its natural fruit,--a deep distrust, which was almost scorn, of
the mother who could stoop so low as to deliberately deceive him. The
incident made such a strong impression upon him, that it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that it "had aged him." He had never been able to
respect his father,--and now he was moved to despise his mother. Hence
his good-byes to her were cold and lifeless--the kiss he gave her was a
mere touch--his little hand lay limply in hers--while she, in her
sublime self-conceit, thought that this numb and frozen attitude of the
child was the result of his grief at parting from her.
"See that he has a good dinner, please!" she said to the captain, in
whose care she had placed him, heaving her large bosom expansively as
she spoke--"Poor, dear little fellow! He's so terribly cut up at parting
from me,--we have been such friends--such close companions! You will
look after him, won't you?"
The captain grunted a brief assent, thinking what a remarkably stout
woman she was,--and Boy smiled--such a pale, cold little smile--the
first touch of the sarcasm that was destined to make his pretty mouth
into such a hard line in a few more years. And the ship plunged away
from the English shore through the grey-green foam-crested billows--and
Boy leaned over the deck rail, and watched the churning water under the
paddle-wheels, and the sea-birds swooping down in search of stray scraps
of food thrown out from the ship's kitchen,--and he remembered what
Rattling Jack had said about them--"Born and bred in a hole of the
cliffs, they've got to larn to fly--and larn they do--and when they
flies, they flies their own way--they takes it an' they keeps it!"
And moved by an odd sense of the injurious treatment of an untoward
Fate, he took out from his pocket the precious "tiger's tooth" the old
sailor had given him as a talisman, and dropped it in the waves.
"For it's evidently not a bit of use," he said to himself; "Jack said it
would take me through difficulties, but it hasn't. It has been no help
to me at all. It's a humbug, like--like most things. And as for the
sea-gulls, I'm sure the world is a better place for birds than boys. I
wish I'd never been a boy."
But youthful wishes, like youthful hopes, are often vain, and doomed to
annihilation through the cross-currents of opposing influences; and
heedless of Boy's aching little heart, so full of crushed aspirations
and disappointments, the ship went on and bore him relentlessly away
from everything in which he had the faintest interest. And while he was
on his journey to France, his estimable "Muzzy" sat down at home, and in
high satisfaction and importance, wrote two letters. One was to the
Master of the "skool" at Noirville, as follows:--
"DEAR SIR,
My son has left England to-day so that he will arrive in time to
meet your representative at St. Malo, where I understand you will
send to receive him. I have no further instructions respecting his
education to give you, except to ask you to kindly supervise his
letters. He has a young friend named Alister McDonald, son of
Colonel McDonald, who is of very good family, to whom he may wish
to write, and I have no objection whatever to his doing so. But
there is an elderly person named Miss Leslie, who has an extremely
unfortunate influence upon his mind, and I shall be obliged to you
if you will intercept any letters he may attempt to write to her
and forward them to me.
Mes meilleurs compliments!
AMELIA D'ARCY-MUIR."
The other was to Miss Leslie.
"MY DEAR LETITIA,
I am sure you will be glad to hear that dear Boy has gone to
school. I have sent him to a very good establishment in Noirville,
Brittany, where he will pick up French very quickly, and languages
are so necessary to a boy nowadays. He left his love for you, and
told me to say good-bye to you for him. I hope you are quite well,
and that this rather damp weather is not affecting your spirits. I
am of course rather lonely without my darling son, but to be a good
mother one must always suffer something.
Sincerely yours,
AMELIA D'ARCY-MUIR."
It was with a curious sense of self-congratulation that she posted these
two letters, and thought of the result they would effect. The one to the
French schoolmaster would subject Boy to a sort of espionage, which
would, she decided, be "good for him,"--it was part of "a mother's duty"
to make a child feel that he was watched and suspected and mistrusted,
and that every innocent letter he wrote was under "surveillance" as if
he were a prisoner of war,--and the one to Miss Letty would cause that
good and gentle creature such grief and consternation as made the worthy
Amelia D'Arcy-Muir wriggle with pleasure to contemplate. She was one of
those very common types of women who delight in making other women
unhappy, and who approve of themselves for doing an unkindness as though
it were a virtue. There was nothing she liked better than to meet some
sour old beldame-gossip and talk with a sort of condescending pity of
some beautiful or well-known person completely out of her sphere, as if
the said person were an ancient hooded crow. To pick a reputation to
pieces was one of her delights,--to make mischief in households,
another,--and to create confusion and discord where, till her arrival,
all had been peace, was an ecstacy whose deliciousness to her soul
almost approached surfeit. She always said her disagreeable things in
the softest accents, as though she were imparting a valuable
secret,--and when an inextricably hopeless muddle of affairs among
perfectly harmless people had come about through her interference, she
put on a grand air of protesting innocence, and looked "like Niobe all
tears." But in secret she hugged herself with joy to think what trouble
she had managed to work up out of nothing,--hence her mood was one of
the smoothest, most suave satisfaction, as she pictured Miss Letty's
face of woe when she heard that Boy had gone away out of England! She
ordered a dozen native oysters, and had a pint of champagne for supper,
by way of outward expression for her inward comfort--and enjoyed these
luxuries doubly because of the delighted consciousness she had that Miss
Letty was unhappy.
And she was right enough. Poor Miss Leslie was indeed unhappy. When she
received Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's letter, her astonishment and regret knew no
bounds.
"Boy gone to school in France!" she exclaimed--"In France!"
And the tears sprang to her eyes. She read the news again and yet again.
"Oh, poor Boy!" she murmured,--"Why didn't you write to me! And yet----
if his mother was obstinately resolved upon such a scheme I could have
done nothing. But--to send him to France!"
She thought over it, and worried about it all the morning, and finally
sent a brief telegram to Major Desmond at his club, asking him to call
and see her that afternoon about tea-time if he had nothing more
important to do. And the Major, thinking Letty must be ill or she never
would have wired for him, took a hansom straight away, and arrived to
luncheon instead of to tea.
"Oh, Dick!" said Miss Letty at once as she gave him her hand in
greeting,--"I have such bad news about Boy! They have sent him away to
school in France!"
The Major stared.
"France!" he echoed blankly.
"Yes--France! To a place called Noirville in Brittany. Poor child! Here
is his mother's letter." And she gave him Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's
communication.
He read it in visible impatience,--then he threw it down upon the table
angrily.
"That woman is a fiend, Letty!" he said,--"A devil encased in fat!
That's what she is! If she had been thin, she would have been a
Murderess--as it is, she's a Muddler! A criminal Muddler!" He walked up
and down the room wrathfully--then stopped in front of Miss Leslie,
whose gentle face was pale, and her eyes were suspiciously moist.
"Now, Letty, listen to me! Be a man!--I mean, be a brave woman!--and
look this thing in the face. You must say good-bye to Boy for ever!"
"Say good-bye to Boy for ever!" repeated Miss Leslie mechanically--"Must
I?"
"Yes, you must!" said the Major with an attempt at sternness,--"Don't
you see? The child has gone--and he'll never come back. A boy will
come back, but not the boy you knew. The boy you knew is practically
dead. Try to realize that, Letty! It's very hard, I know--but it's a
fact. The poor little chap had enough against him in his home
surroundings, God knows!--but a cheap foreign school is the last straw
on the camel's back. Whatever is good in his nature will go to
waste,--whatever is bad will grow and flourish!"
Miss Letty said nothing. She sat down and clasped her hands together to
control their nervous trembling.
"An English school," went on Desmond, "might have been the saving of
Boy. He would have been taught there that death is preferable to
dishonour. But at a foreign school he'll learn that to tell lies
prettily, and to cheat with elegance, are cardinal points in a
gentleman's conduct. And there are other things besides,--No,
Letty!--no--it's no good you fretting yourself! Say good-bye to Boy--and
say it for ever!"
He came and bent over her, and took one of the delicate trembling hands
in his own.
"You have said good-bye to so many hopes and joys, Letty!" he said, with
deep tenderness in his kind voice--"and said it so bravely and
unrepiningly, that you must not lose courage now. It's just one more
disappointment--that's all. Think of Boy as a child--the coaxing little
rascal who used to call you 'Kiss-Letty'"--he paused a moment--then went
on--"And you will get accustomed after a bit to believe he has gone to
Heaven. You know you'll never see that little winsome child
again,--there was hardly anything of him left in the boy who came to
visit you in Scotland. But you had the last of his childhood there,
Letty,--be satisfied! Say good-bye!"
Miss Letty looked up at the honest sympathising face of her staunch old
friend, and tried to smile.
"No, Dick, I don't think I'll do that," she said gently--"I don't think
I can. You see I may perhaps be able to help Boy in some way later
on----"
"There's no doubt you will if you're inclined to, and that he'll need
help," said the Major somewhat grimly--"But what I mean, Letty, is that
you must put away all your fancies about him. Don't idealize him any
more. Don't think that he will be an exceptional sort of fellow, or turn
out brilliantly as a noble example to the world in general,--because he
won't. There's no hope in that quarter. And--if you take my advice,
you'll stop thinking about him for the present, and make up your mind to
join me and a few friends who are going out to the States. Come to
America, Letty,--come along! And I'll try and find another Boy for you!"
Miss Leslie shook her head.
"That's impossible!" she said sorrowfully,--"I'm very conservative in my
affections."
"I know that!" said the Major dolefully--"By Jove! I know that!"
He was silent, looking at her wistfully, and tugging at his white
moustache.
"Letty, I say!" he broke out presently--"I'm getting an old man, you
know,--I shall soon be turning up my toes to the daisies--will you not
do me a kindness?"
"Why, of course I will if I can, Dick!" she answered readily--"What is
it?"
"Come to America! There's a little orphan niece of mine,--Violet
Morrison--only child of my old pal Jack Morrison of the Guards--he
married my youngest sister--both of 'em dead--and only this little girl
left. She's just twelve, and I want her to finish her education in
America, where they honour bright women instead of despising them. But I
don't want to leave you behind. Come and play Auntie to her, will you?"
"Do you really want me?" Miss Leslie asked anxiously--"Should I be
useful?"
"Useful! You would be worth more than your weight in gold--as you always
are! Come and chaperone Violet--she hasn't got a soul in the world
except me to care a button for her. You'll do no good brooding here by
yourself in London, and wondering how Boy is getting on in France. You
had much better come and be happy in giving happiness to others."
"Do you think Boy might write to me?" she asked hesitatingly.
"He might--but it's more than possible his letter would never reach you.
And if you wrote to him, it's ten to one whether your letter would ever
reach him. They spy on boys in foreign schools, and report everything
to their parents. Anyhow, if he did write to you here at this address,
the letter would be forwarded. Don't hesitate, Letty! Come to America
and help me take care of Violet! Say yes!"
"When do you start?"
"In a week."
Miss Letty thought a moment.
"Very well, Dick. I certainly have no ties to keep me in England. I know
you mean it kindly. I'll come and look after your niece. It will give me
something to do."
"Of course it will!" said the Major, delighted--"Letty, you're a brick!"
She laughed a little, but her eyes were sad.
"Dick!" she said.
"Letty!"
"Don't ask me to forget Boy! I can't!"
The Major raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
"All right, I won't. But I didn't ask you to forget the child. No. He
was a charming child. But--he's gone!"
"Yes," said Miss Letty with a sigh--"He's gone."
And she did not answer Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir's letter, nor did she write to
Boy.
The following week she started for New York with the Major and his
niece, a pretty, bright little girl who was completely fascinated by
Miss Letty's charm and gentleness, and who obeyed her implicitly with
devotion and tenderness at once,--and the only intimation Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir received of her departure was through a letter to her
husband from Major Desmond, which of course she opened. It ran as
follows:--
"DEAR D'ARCY,
I'm off to America with a party of two or three friends, including
Miss Leslie, who is kindly chaperoning my young niece Violet
Morrison, whom I am going to place at a finishing school in New
Jersey. I daresay you remember Jack Morrison of the Guards--this is
his only child,--and I prefer an American education for girls to an
English one. I hear your little chap has been sent to school in
France--it's a d----d shame to try and turn an upright-standing
Briton into a French frog. Better by far have sent him to one of
the first-class educational establishments in the States. However,
I suppose your wife has different ideas to anyone else respecting
the education of boys. Take my advice and don't drink yourself into
the lower regions--look after your own affairs, and attend to the
education of the little chap whose appearance and conduct in this
world you are answerable for. If he ever goes to the bad, it won't
be half as much his fault as yours. I always speak my mind, as you
know--and I'm doing it now.
Yours truly,
DICK DESMOND."
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir bridled with offence as she read these lines, but she
put them calmly into her usual posting-place for other people's
letters--the fire,--and for once she was exceedingly annoyed. Her
ordinary bland state of complacent self-satisfaction was seriously
disturbed. Miss Leslie, instead of writing to express her grief and
distress at Boy's departure--instead of doing anything that she was
expected to do--had actually packed up her things and gone to America!
Did any one ever hear of such a thing! And who could tell!--she might
take a fancy to Major Desmond's niece and leave her all her money! And
Boy would be done out of it! For this flabby-minded, inconsistent woman
had convinced herself that Boy must inevitably be Miss Leslie's heir in
the long run. And now here was a most unexpected turn to affairs.
That night she wrote to Boy a letter in which the following passage
occurred:--
"I do not think Miss Leslie is as fond of you as she professed to
be, for she has never said one word about your going to school, or
sent you any message. I hear she has gone to America with Major
Desmond's little niece, who is being taken out there to finish her
education. It seems a funny place to send an English girl to
school, but I suppose the Major thinks he knows best."
Boy read this with the weary scorn that was becoming habitual with him.
If America was a funny place to send an English girl to school at, he
thought France was a still funnier place for an English boy. And Miss
Letty "was not so fond of him as she professed to be," wasn't she? Boy
thought he knew better. But if he was mistaken, it did not matter much.
Nothing mattered now! He didn't care! Not he! It was foolish to care
about anything or anybody. So one of his schoolmates told him,--a wiry
boy from Paris with dark eyes, curly black hair, and a trick of smiling
at nothing, and shrugging his shoulders.
"Qu'est que c'est la vie?" this youthful satirist would say. "C'est
vieux jeu!--bagatelle! Ouf! Une farce! Une comdie! Tout passe--tout
casse!--et Dieu s'amuse!"
And Boy shrugged his shoulders likewise and smiled at nothing, and
said,--
"Qu'est que c'est la vie? Une comdie! Et Dieu s'amuse!"
CHAPTER VIII
The steady pulse of time, which goes on mercilessly beating with calm
inflexibility, regardless of all the lesser human pulses that hurriedly
beat with it for a little while and then cease for ever, had measured
out six whole years since Boy went to "skool" in France, and he was now
sixteen, and also one of the foremost scholars at a well-known English
military school. He had stayed in France for over a year, his mother
having gone there to spend his holidays with him, rather than allow him
to return to England and "spoil his French accent," as she said. Poor
Boy! He never had much of an accent, and what he learned of French was
very soon forgotten when he came home. But what he learned of morals in
France was not forgotten, and took deep root in his character. When he
came back to England he found his father settled in London again, and
bent on a sudden new scheme of education for him. The Honourable Jim was
beginning to suffer severely from his constant unlimited potations; he
was looking very bloated and heavy, and his eyes had an unpleasant fixed
glare in them occasionally, which to a medical observer, boded no good.
He had almost died in one bad fit of delirium tremens, and it was during
the gradual process of his recovery from this attack, when in a
condition of maudlin sentiment and general shakiness, that he decided on
a public military training school as the next element in Boy's
education.
"Poor little chap!" he whimpered to the physician who had just blandly
told him that he would be dead on whisky in two years,--"Poor little
chap! I've been a bad father to him, doctor,--yes, I have--d----n it!
I've left his bringing up to my wife--and she's a d----d fool--always
was--married her for her looks; ain't much of 'em now, eh? ha-ha! all
gone to seed! Well, well!--we're here to-day and gone to-morrow!" and he
rolled his confused head to and fro on his pillows, smiling
feebly,--"That's what the old-fashioned clowns used to say in the
old-fashioned pantomimes. But by Jove! I'll turn over a new leaf--Boy
shall be properly educated, d----n it! He shall!"
So he swore--and so he resolved, and for once carried his way over the
expostulations of his wife, who had some other "scheme" in view for "my
son's advancement," but what scheme it was she was unable to state
clearly. No such idea crossed either of their minds as the fact that Boy
was already educated, so far as character and susceptibility of
temperament were concerned. Both father and mother were too ignorant to
realize that whatever good or bad there was in his disposition, was
already too fully developed to be either checked or diverted from its
course. And when the lad went to the school decided upon, it was with
exactly the same weariness, indifference and cynicism with which he had
gone to France. He had a bright brain, and soon became fully conscious
of his powers. He mastered his lessons easily,--and as he had a sort of
dogged determination to stand high in his classes, he succeeded. But his
success gave him no joy. His vague fancies about the great possibilities
of life, had all vanished. In the French school, among the boys of all
ages and dispositions he met there, he had learned that the chief object
of living was to please one's Self. To do all that seemed agreeable to
one's Self--and never mind the rest! For example,--one could believe in
God as long as one wished to,--but when this same God did not arrange
things as suited one's Self, then let God go. And Boy took this lesson
well to heart,--it coloured and emphasized all the other "subjects" for
which he "crammed" steadily, filling up his exam. papers and gaining
thousands of marks for the parrot-like proficiency in such classical
forms of study as were bound to be of no use whatever to him in the
practical business of life. He was training to be an officer--and in
consequence of this, was learning precisely everything an officer need
not know. But as this is too frequently the system of national
education nowadays in all professions, particularly the military, the
least said about it the better. Boy, like other boys, did just what he
was ordered to do, learned just what he was required to learn, with
steady dogged persistence but no enthusiasm, and spared no pains to
grind himself down into the approved ordinary pattern of an English
college boy, and for this he made a complete sacrifice of all his
originality. His studies fagged him, but he showed nothing of his
weariness, and equally said nothing. He grew thin and tall and weak and
nervous-looking--and one of the chief troubles of his life was his
mother. Always dutiful to her, he did his best to be affectionate,--for
he was old enough now to feel very sorry for her,--sorry and ashamed as
well. Truth to tell, the most casual stranger looking at Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir, could not but feel a timid reluctance to be seen in her
company. Always inclined to fat, she had grown fatter than ever,--always
loving slothful ease, she had grown lazier; her clothes were a mere
bundle hooked loosely round her large form, and with ill-cut,
non-fitting garments, she affected a "fashionable" hat, which created a
wild and almost alarming effect whenever she put it on. Boy blushed
deeply each time he saw her thus arrayed. In fact he often became
painfully agitated when passers-by would stare at his mother with a
derisive smile,--always over-sensitive, he could scarcely keep the
tears out of his eyes. He lived in terror lest she should fulfil her
frequently expressed intention of visiting his college to see the
cricket matches or sham fights which often took place in the
grounds--for if she did come, he would have to walk about with her and
introduce her perhaps to some of his school-fellows. He dreaded this
possibility, for he could not but compare her with the neat, and even
elegantly dressed ladies who came at stated times to the school, and
were proudly presented by various boys to their masters as "my mother."
How dreadful it would be if he had to own that the large lolling bundle
of clothes, wispy hair and foolish face was "my mother"! It was not as
if she had not the means to be tidy,--she had,--and as Boy often
noticed, even some of the poorest women kept themselves clean and sweet.
Why could not his mother look as tidy for instance as their own
servant-maid when she went out on Sunday? He could not imagine. And he
dared not ask her to be more careful of her personal appearance in order
to save him shame; she would of course take the suggestion as a piece of
gross impertinence.
And did he ever think of Miss Letty? Yes,--often and often he thought of
her, but in a dull, hopeless, far-away fashion, as of one who had passed
out of his life, never to be seen again. Ages seemed to have rolled by
since his childhood,--and the face and figure of his old friend were
pretty nearly as dimly indistinct in his memory as the shape and look
of his once adored cow "Dunny." He heard of her now and then,--for her
course of life and action had considerably astonished and irritated Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir, who frequently found occasion to make unkind remarks on the
"fads" of that "silly old maid." However, Miss Letty had no "fads,"--she
merely made it a rule to be useful wherever she could,--and if she
thought she saw a line of work and duty laid down for her to follow, she
invariably followed it. When she had gone out to the States with Major
Desmond as temporary chaperone to his niece, she met with so much
kindness and hospitality from the Americans,--so much instant
appreciation of her good breeding, grace and fine qualities, that she
was quite affected by it,--and she had only been two or three months in
New York, when she found to her amazement and gratitude that she had
hosts of friends. Young girls adored her,--young men came to her with
their confidences,--and all the elder women, married and unmarried, came
round her, attracted by her sweetness, tactfulness, simplicity of manner
and absolute sincerity. "Our English Miss Letty" was her new
sobriquet,--and Major Desmond's young niece, Violet Morrison, always
called her "my own Miss Letty." Violet was a very sweet, engaging child,
and when she went to the school in New Jersey selected for her, she said
to her uncle coaxingly on the day he left her there,--
"Wouldn't it be nice if Miss Letty lived over here while I am at school?
I could always go to her for my holidays then."
The Major pinched her soft round cheek and kissed her and called her a
"little baggage,"--did she suppose, he asked, that Miss Letty was going
to absent herself from England all that while just to make holidays for
a chit of a girl? But he thought about the matter a good deal, not from
any selfish point of view, but solely on account of the happiness of the
dear woman he had secretly loved so long, and whom he meant to love to
the end. Sitting meditatively in one of the luxurious New York
clubs, of which, with the ready courtesy Americans show to their
stranger-visitors, he had been made an honorary member, the Major turned
Miss Letty's position over in his mind. She was all alone in the world,
and though she was rich, he knew her nature well enough to be sure that
in her case riches did not compensate for solitude. She had certain
friends in England,--but none of them were half as sympathetic,
warm-hearted or kindly, as those she had made so quickly in America. She
had been disappointed in her love for Boy,--and if she tried to
intervene in the further disposition of his fate, she would probably be
disappointed again. Now here, in America, was Violet,--studying hard to
become a bright, clever, sweet woman,--to learn to talk well and to know
thoroughly what she was talking about--not to be a mere figure-head of
femininity, just capable of wearing a gown and having a baby. Something
more than that was demanded for Violet,--the Major wanted her to be
brought up to understand the beauty and satisfaction of an impersonal
life--a life that should widen, not narrow with experience,--and who
could be a more faithful home instructress of unselfishness and virtue
than Miss Letty? Yes; it would certainly mean a great and lasting
benefit to Violet if she could have the blessing of Miss Letty's
influence and affectionate guidance in the opening out of her young
life. And what of Miss Letty herself?
"Give that dear woman something to do for somebody else," mused the
Major, "and she's perfectly happy. It's only for herself she doesn't
care to do anything. Now I shall make her life best worth living, if I
can fill it with duties--that is, if I can only persuade her to accept
the duties."
And after some further cogitation he went to Miss Letty and explained
himself thoroughly, with, as he thought, a most artful and painstaking
elaboration of his young niece's position,--how hard it was for her to
be without some one of her own sex to look after her, deprived as she
was of a mother's influence and example, and so on and so on, till Miss
Letty suddenly stopped him in his eloquent harangue by a little shake of
her hand, and an uplifted finger of protest.
"Dick!" she said, with a sparkle in her eyes suggestive of a dewdrop
and sunbeam in one--"You are a dear old humbug!"
The Major started and blushed,--yes, actually blushed. He had considered
himself a wonderful diplomatist, able to prepare a scheme of so deep and
wily a nature that the most astute person would never be able to fathom
it, and after all his crafty preparations, his plan turned out to be so
transparent that a simple woman could see through it at once! He
wriggled on his chair uneasily, coughed, and looked distinctly taken
aback, while Miss Letty went on,--
"Yes, you are a dear old humbug, Dick!" she said, "And a good kind
friend as well! It is not for Violet's sake that you want me to stay
over this side of ocean for a while, for there are hundreds of nice
women here who would be only too pleased to have the child pass her
holidays with them and their daughters,--no, Dick!--it isn't for
Violet's sake half so much as it is for mine! I see that,--and I
understand your good heart. You think I am a lonely old body--getting
older quickly every day--and that the more friends I have, and the
greater the interest I can take in other lives than my own, the better
it will be for me. And you're right, Dick! I'm not a fool, and I hope I
am neither obstinate nor selfish. I see what you mean! You are very
clear, my dear friend,--clear as crystal! I have not known you all these
years for nothing. I honour and admire you, Dick, and if I didn't go by
your advice pretty often, I should be the most ungrateful creature under
the sun. The only interest I have--or had--in England, apart from my
natural love of home, is Boy,--but it is quite evident his mother
doesn't wish me to interfere with him, so I'm better out of the way. And
the long and the short of it is, Dick, I'll do just what you wish me to
do!"
"Hooray, hooray!" cried the Major ecstatically. "Oh, Letty, Letty, what
a wife you would have made! And it's not too late even now. Won't you
have me? We're too old to play Romeo and Juliet, but we can play Darby
and Joan!"
In his excitement, Desmond had risen, and leaning behind Miss Letty's
chair, had slipped an arm round her, and now with one hand he turned up
the dear face, so delicate, so little wrinkled, so tenderly shaped by
approving Time into the sweetest of sweet expressions. The faintest pink
coloured the pale cheeks at this impulsive caress of her old and
faithful adorer.
"Dick, if I did not believe, as I do, that God always brings true lovers
together again after death, I should say 'yes' to you, and do my best,
old woman as I am, to be a companion to you for the rest of your life,
and make your home cosy and comfortable; but you see I gave my promise
to Harry before he went to India, that I would never marry any one but
himself. He died true--and so must I!"
Never was the poor Major more bitterly and sorely tempted than at that
moment. With all his heart he longed to tell the gentle trusting
creature how utterly unworthy this same "Harry" had always been of such
pure devotion,--he wanted to say that the person likely to "die true"
was himself, and that the dead man she idolized did not merit a day's
regret,--but the strong sense of honour in the gallant old man held him
silent, though he bit his lips hard to check the outburst of truth which
threatened to rise and overcome his self-control. If he told her
all, he would be doing two things that were in his estimation
villainous,--first, he would be taking away a dead man's character, and
secondly, he would be destroying a good woman's lifelong faith. No,--it
was impossible--he could not, would not do it. He gave a deep
sigh,--then patted Miss Letty's white forehead gently and smoothed the
silver hair.
"Have your own way, my dear!" he said resignedly, "Have your own way! I
ought to be contented to have you as my friend, without hankering after
you as a wife. I am a selfish old rascal,--that's what's the matter with
me. Forget and forgive!"
"There's nothing to either forget and forgive, Dick," she said quickly,
and with a sense of compunction, giving him her hand, which he kissed
tenderly, though "Harry's" engagement-ring still sparkled on it,--"I
don't deserve all your affection,--but I don't mind telling you I should
be very much unhappier than I am, without it!"
"Well, that's something!" said the Major, beginning to smile again, and
walking up and down the room,--"That's what we may call a bit of
heartsease. And now if you are going to do exactly what I want you to
do, I suggest that you should take a pretty house on Long Island,--one
of those charming and luxurious villas with big gardens, where you can
roam about and enjoy yourself,--and let me cross the herring-pond for
you and see to the letting of your place in England. You can do
something advantageous with it for a year or two, and till that time you
might tour through America and see everything worth seeing. And when I
have transacted your business I will attend to my own, come out here
again, and enjoy myself too!"
And so,--after more discussion, it was finally decided, and so,--much to
the pleasure of Miss Letty's numerous friends in America, it was finally
arranged. And "our English Miss Letty" established herself in a
beautiful house elegantly furnished, whose windows commanded a fine view
of the sea, and which was surrounded by gardens full of wonderful
flowers, such as are never seen in England, and a conservatory still
more gorgeously supplied,--and though she missed the songs of the sweet
English birds, the skylark, the blackbird, the thrush, and the familiar
robin, she still had sufficient natural beauty about her to be in her
own quiet way thankful for life and its privileges. She began to have
serious thoughts of making her home for good in America, for Violet
gathered about her such an assemblage of bright young people, and she
herself was so much in demand, that she often wondered how it would ever
be possible for her to escape from so many pleasant ties and go back to
England again. She had written to Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, giving her address
and stating something of her future intentions,--but had received no
reply. And Boy never wrote to her at all. But she was not very much
surprised at that, as it was most likely his mother would not tell him
where she was. And so time flew on insensibly, one year after another,
and Violet Morrison, from a little girl, grew up into a pretty maiden of
seventeen summers,--graceful and gentle--clever, good, true, and devoted
to Miss Letty, who loved her as a daughter, though her old affection for
Boy never grew cold. Boy as she knew him,--Boy with all his little
droll, pretty ways as a child,--Boy with his sad, wistful, old-fashioned
manner, the result of home drawbacks, when he came to see her in
Scotland, after which she had lost him for good,--Boy was still the
secret idol of her heart next to "Harry," whose image remained the
centre of that inmost shrine. She could not picture Boy at all as a lad
of fifteen--to her he was always a child; and on a little bracket near
the chair where she was accustomed to sit every day with her needlework,
there always stood the only two mementoes she had of him--the toy cow
"Dunny," unchanged in aspect, which he had viewed with such
indifference in Scotland, and had left behind him there; and the little
pair of shabby shoes, the souvenirs of the first time he ever stayed
with her.
One day Violet Morrison asked her uncle about these mysterious relics.
"Why does Miss Letty keep that funny toy cow and those little shoes
always beside her?"
Major Desmond puffed at his cigar, and surveyed his niece's pretty
rounded figure, bright face and sweet expression with much inward
satisfaction. He met her question with another.
"Have you ever asked her?"
Violet blushed.
"No, I don't think it's good taste to ask people about their little
fancies. One may hurt them quite unintentionally. And I wouldn't hurt
darling Miss Letty for the world!"
"That's right, child!" said the Major--"You have the true feeling. But
there is not much mystery about that toy cow or those shoes. Miss Letty,
bless her heart, has no deep secrets in her life. The cow and the shoes
belonged to a little chap named Robert D'Arcy-Muir, but generally called
'Boy.' She loved him very much, and wanted to adopt him; but his mother
would not let her--and so--and so--she has got the cow and the shoes,
and that's all that's left of him!"
"I see!" murmured Violet, and her pretty eyes grew moist. After a pause
she said, "I suppose she could not love me as she loved Boy?"
"She loves you very much," answered the Major discreetly.
"Yes--but not as she loved Boy! I was never quite a little child with
her. I think"--and the girl's fair face grew very serious--"if you once
love a little child, you must always love it!"
"What, even if the child disappears altogether into a boy, and then into
a man?--and perhaps an unpleasant man?" queried the Major with some
amusement. But Violet did not smile.
"Yes--I think so," she replied. "You see, you can never forget--if you
ever knew--that though he may be grown into a man--perhaps a bad
man--still he was a dear little child once! That's what makes mothers so
patient, I'm sure!"
She turned away, not trusting herself to say any more,--for she had
loved her own mother dearly, and had never quite got over her loss.
The Major took his cigar out of his mouth and looked at its end
meditatively.
"How these young creatures think nowadays!" he said. "Dear me! I never
used to think about anything when I was Violet's age. Life was all beer
and skittles, as they say! I kicked about me like a young colt in a
green pasture! Upon my word, I think that life is much too crowded with
learning for the young folks in our present glorious age of progress.
They become positively metaphysical before they're twenty!"
Meanwhile Violet, whose heart was burdened with a secret which she was
afraid to tell to her uncle, went in search of Miss Letty. It was a very
warm day, though not as warm as summer days in America usually are, and
the shadiest part of the house was the deep verandah, where clematis and
the trumpet-vine clustered together round the light wooden pillars, and
made tempting festoons of blossom for the humming-birds, which, like
living jewels, poised and flew, and thrust their long slender beaks into
the deep cups of the flowers, with an incessant, soft, bee-like murmur
of delight. Violet, in her simple white gown, tied at the waist with a
knot of ribbon, paused and shaded her eyes from the burning sunlight,
while she looked right and left to see if Miss Letty were anywhere near.
Yes!--there she was, sitting just inside the verandah in a low
basket-chair, protected by a pretty striped awning, busy as usual with
the embroidery at which she was such a skilled adept, her white fingers
moving swiftly, and her whole attitude and expression one of the
greatest simplicity and content.
"How peaceful she looks!" thought Violet, with a little nervous
tremour--"I wonder if she will be vexed with me?"
Miss Letty at that moment raised her eyes to watch the dainty caperings
of two of the humming-birds, whose exquisite blue wings glittered like
large animated sapphires, and in so doing saw Violet, and smiled. The
girl approached quickly, and threw herself down beside her, taking her
hat off, and lifting her bright hair from her forehead with a little
sigh.
"Are you tired, my dear?" asked Miss Letty gently.
"Yes, I think I am. It is warm, isn't it? Oh dear, Miss Letty, you do
look so sweet! Were you always as good as you are now?"
Miss Letty laid down her embroidery and smiled at this question.
"Good? My dear child, I'm not good! I am just as I always was--a
woman--getting to be a very old one now--full of faults and failings.
What makes you ask me such a funny question?"
"I don't know!" and Violet bit the ribbon of her hat spasmodically--"My
own Miss Letty! Were you ever in love?"
The gentle lady started, and her delicate hands trembled, as she quietly
took up her work and resumed her stitching.
"Yes, Violet," she answered softly--"And what you will say is more
extraordinary, I am in love still!"
"He is dead?" queried Violet timidly.
"Yes. He is dead, so far as this world goes--but he is alive for me in
Heaven. And I shall meet him--soon!"
She raised her patient sweet eyes for a moment--and their expression was
so heavenly--the youth and beauty of the past was so earnestly reflected
in their clear depths, that Violet almost forgot it was an old face in
which these orbs of constancy were set.
"Is that why you never married?" asked Violet, in hushed, tender tones.
"Yes, my dear. That is why. For I am an old-fashioned body--and I
believe in the maxim, 'Once love, love always'!"
"Ah yes!"
Violet turned her head away and was silent for a long time. Miss Letty,
still working, glanced at her now and then with a smile, till at last
she said in sweet, equable tones,--
"Well! How long am I to wait for this little confession! Who is he?"
A face was turned upon her, rosy as the leaves of the trumpet-vine
flowers above,--a pair of bright eyes flashed, like the twinkle of the
humming-bird's wings, and a muffled voice exclaimed,--
"Miss Letty!"
In another moment the girl was at her feet, hiding her head in the folds
of her old friend's gown, and making dreadful havoc with the silks and
filoselles which were in use for the embroidery.
"Mind! There are needles about!" said Miss Letty, laughing a
little--"They will scratch your pretty face--dear me!--you're catching
all the silks in your hair!" and she carefully took out threads of blue
and red and gold from the bright, rippling curls of the bent head at
her knee. "Now what's the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter," answered Violet, still hiding her eyes--though
she got hold of Miss Letty's two hands and held them fast,--"It's only
that last night--he said--he said----"
"That he loved you?" said Miss Letty tenderly, trying to help her
out,--"Well, that's very natural on the part of any young man, I'm sure!
But who is he?"
Violet perked her head up for a minute, and then burrowed it down again.
"Ah! That's just it!" she said, in smothered accents. "He is not exactly
young."
"Oh, dear me! Is he old?"
"Oh no!" This answer was most emphatic--"But he isn't a boy, you know!
He is--well--I suppose he is about thirty-five!"
"My dear child! But--before I pass any opinion, or give any advice--will
you not just tell me plainly who he is? Does your uncle know him? Do I
know him?"
"Everybody knows him!" said Violet. "That's the worst of it! That's why
I'm afraid you won't like it! He is Mr. Max Nugent!"
Miss Letty almost jumped out of her chair. Max Nugent, the
millionaire!--the man after whom all the "society" beauties of London,
Paris, and New York had been running like hunters after a fox,--he in
love with little Violet? It seemed strange--almost unnatural--she could
scarcely believe it, and in the extremity of her surprise, was quite
speechless.
"He says he wishes he was not a millionaire!" said Violet in doleful
accents, beginning to twist her hat round and round--"He says he wishes
he was just a clerk in an office doing a grind, and coming home to me in
a little weeny house! He would be quite content! But he can't help it!
You see, his father left him all the dreadful money,--and the only thing
he can use it for is to try to make other people happy. And he thinks I
might help him to do that! But there,--I see by your looks you don't
like it!"
A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes, and Miss Letty, recalling her
scattered wits, made haste to put her arms round her and comfort her.
"My dear Violet, my darling girl, don't cry,--you quite mistake me. I am
surprised,--indeed very much surprised--but I am not displeased. I know
very little about Mr. Nugent,--I daresay he is a very good man--your
uncle sees more of him than I do,--but--you must remember he is so much
older than you are, and so much sought after by the world that it seems
difficult to realize that he wants to marry my little girl!
There--there! Don't cry! Does your uncle know?"
"I couldn't tell him!" sobbed Violet--"I wanted to, but I didn't dare!
And Max said that if I told you, he would tell uncle. Do you see? Then
you two would meet and talk it over. There is nothing wrong with Max
except his horrid money! Because everybody will say that I am a mean,
designing, little wretch--and I really have not been anything of the
kind--I never did anything to make him like me--only be just myself----"
Miss Letty kissed her.
"That is the secret of it, little one!" she said--"Being yourself--your
dear self--is the only way to win a man's heart! And do you love him?"
Violet raised her eyes fully this time, and dashed away her tears.
"Yes, I do!" she said earnestly--"I love him dearly!"
Miss Letty stroked her hair thoughtfully.
"It will be a very responsible position for you, dear child, if you
marry Mr. Nugent," she said seriously--"Very brilliant--very
difficult--almost dangerous for such a young thing as you are! I think,
Violet--that perhaps you would rather not have any advice from me just
now?"
"Oh yes--yes! Do advise me! I want advice!" cried the girl
enthusiastically. "Max said whatever you told me I was to do--as he
honoured you more than any woman in the world--except me!"
Miss Letty laughed.
"I was going to say--surely he makes that one reservation!" she said.
"Well, my dear, my advice is that you refrain from entering into any
sort of an engagement for at least a year. Your love for each other will
hold out during that time of probation if it is worth anything--and
then--you will be more certain of your own mind. Yes, I know"--for
Violet was about to interrupt her,--"You think you are quite certain
now, but you are not quite eighteen yet--a mere child--and Mr. Nugent is
a man of the world--believe me, dear, it will be better for you, and
better for him, to endure this test of faith. However, I am not the only
one whose advice you must consider--there is your uncle Desmond. Now you
know, Violet, he is one of the best and kindest men living, and he is
very anxious to do everything well for his dear sister's child,--you
will obey his wishes whatever they are, will you not?"
"Indeed, indeed I will!" said Violet earnestly,--"I promise!"
"That's my dear girl!" and Miss Letty kissed her again--"Now tell me all
about this wonderful Max--though I know just how you feel about him."
"Do you?" said Violet, smiling and blushing--"Then you tell me!"
"You feel," said Miss Letty, taking her hands and pressing them
tenderly, "that there never was, and never will be, such a splendid
lover for a girl in the world as he is,--you feel that when he is near
you you are quite happy, and want nothing more than just to hear him
speak, and watch his eyes resting upon you,--you feel that there is a
blank in your life when he is absent,--you feel that you would not worry
him or vex him by so much as a thought--you feel that if God were to
take him from you now--you would be very lonely--that you would perhaps
never get over it all your life long."
Her voice trembled,--and Violet threw her arms impulsively about her.
"Dear, dear Miss Letty, you know!"
"Yes," said Miss Letty with a faint smile--"I know! Now, little one, let
us try and talk quietly over this affair. Let me get to my work--you
talk--and I listen."
And so as the drowsy heat of the afternoon cooled off towards sunset,
when the humming-birds left off kissing the flowers and went to bed,
like jewels put by in their velvety nest-cases, the two women sat
together--the one young and brimful of hope and the dreams of
innocence--the other old, but as fresh in heart and simplicity of faith
as the girl who so joyously exulted in her springtime.
That evening Violet went off to a dance at the house of a neighbour, and
Major Desmond dropped in to see Miss Letty, just as she was thinking it
was about time to go to bed, notwithstanding the wonderful glory of the
moon which looks so much more luminous and brilliant in the clear
atmosphere of America than in the half misty but more tender pearl tint
of the ever-changeful English skies. She stood on the low step of her
verandah, gazing wistfully up at the proudly glittering Diana, sweeping
through heaven like the veritable huntress of the classic fable, without
a cloud to soften the silver flashing of her bow--and as the Major's
stalwart figure came slowly across the lawn, she was for a moment
startled. He looked anxious and careworn; and her heart sank a little.
She was not actually surprised to see him; he had his suite of rooms at
an hotel not so very far away, and he was accustomed to stroll up to her
house very often, bringing his friends with him. But a worried look on
that cheery face was new to her, and she was not a little troubled to
see it.
"Why, Dick!" she said, as he approached--"Isn't this rather a late
visit?"
"Is it too late for you, Letty?" he asked gently--"If so, I'll go away
again."
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" she said cheerily,--"Violet has gone to
a dance, and I meant to sit up for her in my room, but now we'll both
sit up for her here. What a warm day it has been!--and it's a warm night
too--I'll order you an iced sherry-cobbler."
She rang a bell which communicated with the house, and gave her order to
the servant who answered it--then pushed a comfortable chair forward.
The Major sank into it with a deep sigh.
"That's nice!" he said--"And I won't say no to the sherry-cobbler. I've
had a wearying day."
"Have you? I am sorry!" and Miss Letty's eyes were full of sympathy--"Is
it about--about Violet?"
"Yes--it's about Violet," said the Major, and then became silent,
meditatively tinkling with a spoon the lumps of ice in the
sherry-cobbler which had just been set before him.
"But I don't think you need worry about that," began Miss Letty.
He interrupted her by a slight gesture.
"Ah, you dear woman! You don't know! You are as sweetly ignorant of the
ways of modern men as the ladies in the old-fashioned 'Book of Beauty,'
who always wore their hair parted in the middle and went on smiling
serenely at everything and everybody, even when their lives were ruined
and their hearts broken. No, Letty! You don't know! Has Violet told
you?"
"About Mr. Nugent--yes. I confess I was very much surprised."
"So was I--so I am still!" said the Major--"I don't know what to say
about it. You see, Letty, it's this way. Max Nugent's father was the
biggest rascal that ever died unhanged. He made his wealth by fraud--and
thank goodness, he killed himself by overeating! This young man, his
only son, may be a very good fellow--but he has nothing to be proud of
in his ancestry, and he has seen a great deal of the worst side of the
world. He has lived his own life in Paris, Petersburg and Vienna, and I
doubt--I doubt whether he would make such a simple, unsophisticated
little girl as Violet, happy. I told him so plainly. He came to me
to-day, and talked very eloquently--and I must say very well. I
explained to him that his wealth was simply monstrous and
appalling,--positively vulgar, in fact. He said he knew it was, but he
could not help it. Which of course he can't!"
Miss Letty laughed.
"Poor man! Are you not a little hard on him, Dick?"
The Major sipped his cobbler with a relish. His brows were clear,--the
gentle presence of Miss Letty was already doing him good.
"I think not--I hope not!" he answered--"I told him just what I felt
about it. I said that his money was a disgrace, because it had been
gotten together by fraud. He admitted it. He offered to endow hospitals,
free libraries, and build all sorts of benevolent institutions,--educate
poor children, and encourage deserving beggars all round, if I let him
marry Violet----"
"Well!"
"Well--I don't like it," said the Major very emphatically--"I tell you
plainly, I don't like it! There's just a something about Nugent that I
don't quite trust!"
Miss Letty looked grave.
"If you really feel like that, Dick----" she began.
"I do feel like it!" and the Major squared his shoulders with a
movement of resolution--"But I don't mean to make myself a slave to
personal prejudice. And I have not refused Nugent--but I have said he
must wait a year."
"That's exactly what I told Violet!" said Miss Letty triumphantly.
Desmond looked at her wistfully.
"There you are, you see! Everything proves as plainly as possible that
we two ought to have been one, Letty! Our wits jump together by mutual
consent. Well now, I have told this golden-crusted millionaire that I
cannot permit any sort of engagement to exist between him and my young
niece for twelve months. After that time is ended, if both he and she
are of the same mind, I will consent to an engagement,--the marriage to
follow in six months afterwards. He was very loth to agree to these
terms--but finally, as I would hear of nothing else, he consented. And
what does Violet say?"
"She is willing to do anything you wish," said Miss Letty.
"Yes--she is willing to do anything you wish!" echoed a soft voice
behind them.
They both started and turned round. There stood Violet, just returned
from her dance, looking the very perfection of sweet girlhood, in her
simple white ball-dress, with a knot of carnations on her bodice, and a
little wisp of tulle thrown over her head and shoulders. Her face was
smiling, but her eyes were soft and serious, and as soon as she saw she
was perceived, she came forward and knelt down with a pretty grace at
her uncle's feet.
"She is willing to do anything you wish!" she repeated--"Dearest uncle,
you know I am!"
The old Major patted her head kindly.
"Yes, child!--I am sure you are! And so you have been playing the
eavesdropper, eh? Now, who brought you home from the dance just now?"
"Max--Mr. Nugent did," answered Violet frankly--"But only just as far as
the door. I asked him to come in and see Miss Letty, but he wouldn't!"
"Why wouldn't he?" asked the Major.
"Oh, I don't know!" and Violet gave a pretty gesture of deprecation--"I
think he was shy!"
Desmond gave a short laugh.
"Shy! I never heard that of Max Nugent before! However,--love works
wonders! Well now, Violet, Miss Leslie and I have been talking this
matter over--and I'll tell you what we have decided. We are going to
take you back to England for a year!"
Violet rose from her kneeling attitude at her uncle's side, and her face
grew wistful.
"To England!"
"Yes--to England. Eh, Letty?" and he gave her a side wink. Miss Letty
was startled, but she did not show it outwardly. She merely replied with
a becoming meekness,--
"Whatever you think best for Violet, Dick."
"Well, I think that best," said Desmond firmly--"And to England we will
go as soon as the summer is over; it's July now--we'll give you August
and September to be happy in your own way, Violet, and to make Mr.
Nugent distinctly understand that you have sufficient breadth and
firmness of character to obey those who feel themselves responsible in a
way for your future life and happiness,--and that you mean to make him
deserve you by patience and fidelity. Do you understand?"
"Yes, uncle. I quite understand!" said Violet gently.
"And you are not unhappy about it?"
"No, uncle. You have been so good to me, and your love has been so true
and kind, that I cannot doubt your knowing and doing for the best. I
should indeed be an ungrateful little wretch if I thought otherwise. I
shall obey you absolutely. And dear Miss Letty too!"
She stooped and kissed them both tenderly.
"Good night!" she said cheerily. "I have danced nearly all the
evening--I'm tired, and I'm going to bed!"
"Good night, little one--God bless you!" said Miss Letty fondly.
"God bless you, darling Miss Letty!" And with another kiss and smile,
Violet entered the house, paused on the threshold for a moment to wave
her hand once more, and then vanished.
The two old people were silent for some minutes after she had gone. The
glorious moon shed broad haloes of silvery light around them, and in the
deep silence a whisper seemed to steal upon the heavily perfumed air,
and creep into both their hearts, saying--"You two--you both were young
once,--and now--do you not think you have wasted your lives for a
dream's sake?"
But though they were conscious of this subtle suggestion, their brave
souls had but the one response to it. Miss Letty certainly did not think
her life was wasted because she had been faithful to the memory of her
first love, and because since his death she had done what she could to
make others, instead of herself, happy. And Dick Desmond, though he
sometimes did feel a little bit sore about having had to sacrifice a
sweet wife and cosy home, for the memory as he always said to himself
"of a dead rascal,"--still he did not complain of the romantic faith
that had kept his heart warm all these years, and enabled him to do good
wherever he could in his own particular way. So that whisper of a half
regret passed them by like the merest passing shadow,--and the Major
rose up to go, squaring his shoulders in his usual fashion and shaking
himself like a big retriever.
"I think I'm right, Letty!" he said with a meaning nod towards the
direction in which Violet had disappeared.
"You are always right, Dick, I am sure!" responded Miss Letty sweetly.
The Major took up his broad Panama hat, and looked into its crown
thoughtfully.
"You'll be ready to sail the first week in October, Letty?"
"Quite!"
"Good night!"
"Good night, Dick!"
Whereupon the Major put his Panama firmly on his head and walked slowly
and meditatively down the garden and out of it--and Miss Letty put by
the chairs on the verandah, and shut all the drawing-room windows. As
she paused for a moment by her worktable to put one or two trifles by,
her eyes rested for a moment on the pair of little worn shoes on the
bracket above, and the pensive aspect of the toy cow "Dunny" that stood
close by them, and that seemed to be steadfastly regarding their shabby
toes with a contemplative sadness too deep for even a movable head to
wag over.
"Poor Boy!" mused Miss Letty--"I wonder where he is--and what he is
like--now!"
CHAPTER IX
The summer flew by,--on wings of romance for Violet Morrison, but
somewhat burdened with anxiety for Major Desmond and Miss Leslie. Max
Nugent, millionaire and man of the world, was most charming in his
manner to both the elderly people, and most tender and deferential in
his devotion to the young girl in their charge,--but Major Desmond was
not altogether satisfied about him. He wore a glass in his eye for one
thing. People laughed at the Major when he made objection to such a
trifle,--even Miss Letty laughed. But Desmond was obstinate.
"Well, will you tell me," he demanded, "the practical use of a glass in
one eye? It can't assist the sight, for Nugent always reads without it.
What's it for, then? To look at the scenery? That won't do, for the man
always clicks it out of his eye whenever he glances at the landscape!
There is only one reason for his wearing it--and that is to conceal his
true expression!"
"Now look here, Desmond," said one of his club friends--"You really are
going too far. How the deuce can an eyeglass conceal expression?"
"I'll tell you how"--and the Major proceeded to demonstrate. "Suppose
you succeed in training one eye to look straight while you told a
crammer, and you can't train the other? Suppose that other eye insists
on shifting about and blinking as the lie pops out of your mouth? Why
then, clap the eyeglass on, and there you are!"
And though he was laughed at for this theory, he, to put it in his own
way, "stuck to his guns."
And the middle of October saw Miss Letty back in England. October is
often a very beautiful month in these "Happy Isles," and Miss Letty was
not sorry to see the old country once again. Her house in Hans Place was
still occupied by her tenants, whose lease did not expire till the
coming Christmas; so she took a suite of rooms in one of the many
luxuriously appointed hotels which nowadays make London such a habitable
resort, and fixed this as her headquarters, while, in compliance with
Major Desmond's ideas, she took Violet for various visits to some of the
grand old country seats in England. For both she and Major Desmond had
many friends among the best of the county folks who had beautiful homes,
and loved those homes with a love which unfortunately is being relegated
to the list of old-fashioned virtues, and Violet had plenty of chances
to see for herself how English lives were lived, and what English young
men were like. But the girl was not attracted by any of the jeunesse
dore of her native country. Compared with the courtesy and attention
she had received from the sterner sex in America, who are accustomed to
treat women with the greatest honour and reverence, she found the
English young man brusque, conceited, and often coarse in manner and
conversation. And her love for the polished and deferential Max Nugent
grew stronger and deeper, and all the graceful fancies, hopes and dreams
of her young life clustered around him as the one inevitable centre of
her existence. And the "eyeglass," to which her uncle attached such
grave importance, never troubled her thoughts at all, except to move her
to a smile when she thought of "uncle's fancy" regarding it. And Miss
Letty watched her as a mother would have watched her, and noted all the
little signs of this deep first love absorbing her life, with a
tenderness and interest which were, however, not without a vague touch
of foreboding.
Soon after their return to England, there came an excitement for Miss
Letty herself, in the shape of a letter from Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir. Miss
Letty had written to announce her return, but had scarcely expected any
reply, though she had ventured to express the hope that "dear Boy" was
quite well. Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir now wrote as follows, dating from a suburb
of London:--
"MY DEAR LETITIA,
Your letter was quite a surprise to me, as I thought you had gone
to America for good. I had a funny idea that you would perhaps get
married there after all, for one hears of so many elderly women
marrying nowadays, that there really seems a chance for everybody.
Boy is at his military college preparing for Sandhurst, but as he
will be up in London for an exam. next week I have told him to go
and see you. I thought he had quite forgotten you, but he appears
to remember you fairly well. Of course he was barely ten when you
saw him last, and he is now sixteen, almost a young man as you will
find. He is very tall, and I think good-looking, though that may
be only a mother's fondness. Jim has been very ill lately;--a touch
of what the doctors call hemiplegia, brought on of course by his
own recklessness. I have to nurse him, and so you must excuse me if
I do not make a formal call upon you. I have had to make many
sacrifices in order to keep Boy at college, but a mother never
grudges what she does for her son. Hoping you will be pleased to
see Boy, and that you are as well as a woman of your age can expect
to be,
Believe me, yours very sincerely,
AMELIA D'ARCY-MUIR.
P.S.--Boy will call and see you on Wednesday afternoon next, unless
you write to say that the day is inconvenient."
With an inward delight which she felt was foolish, yet which she could
not suppress, Miss Letty straightway wrote an answer to this, saying
that she would be very pleased indeed to see Boy to luncheon on the
Wednesday named; and having despatched this missive, she called Violet
and told her of the expected visit of the child, now grown to a young
stripling, whom she had loved so fondly. Violet listened with attentive
sympathy.
"He was such a dear, pretty little fellow!" said Miss Letty
affectionately. "He had such droll ways, and was altogether so quaint
and lovable!"
"And how old is he now?" asked Violet.
"He is sixteen,--yes--of course he must be getting on for seventeen!"
said Miss Letty almost wonderingly. "Dear me! How the time flies!"
"Just a year younger than I am!" said Violet.
"Yes. But you are quite a woman--thinking of getting married too! Well,
well!"--and Miss Letty heaved a little sigh of resignation. "However,
young women grow older much more quickly than young men, and I daresay
Boy is quite a boy still!"
"I hope he is,--for your sake, my own Miss Letty!" said Violet
tenderly--"I shouldn't like you to be disappointed in him!"
Miss Letty looked thoughtful.
"Of course he will be changed," she said--"very much changed! He was
changed even when he came to stay with me in Scotland, and he was not
quite ten then. He seemed to me much sadder and older than a child of
his years ought to have been. But he has had a long time of study at a
very excellent military college somewhere down in the country, and I
daresay that the training there has made quite a man of him. Poor Boy!
Margaret will tell you all about him if you ask her."
And Violet did ask Margaret, who now, grown extremely stout and jolly,
had come over from her home in Scotland to serve her beloved Miss Letty
once more. The trip to America had been too much for the worthy woman's
contemplation, and when her mistress had gone there, she and the
respectable butler Plimpton had made a match of it, and were now the
proprietors of a small but extremely cosy hotel on the picturesque
shores of Loch Etive. But as soon as she heard that Miss Letty had
returned to England for a time, nothing would serve but that she must
come to London and attend upon her again,--an idea which entirely met
with her husband's approval. And so here she was, established in the
hotel in a room adjoining Miss Letty's, wearing a smart white apron, and
sewing away as if she had never left her situation at all, and as if the
six years of her married life that had intervened were nothing but a
dream.
"Do I remember Master Boy?" she said now, as Violet asked her the
question,--"I should think I do indeed! Just the bonniest wee lad! And
Miss Letty was sair fashed about him,--and she would have given her
best of all in the world to have got him wi' her, and adopted him as her
own. Ah, she's a grand leddy! What a wife and mither she would ha' made
to any man gude enough for her!"
"And she loved Boy very much then?" went on Violet, playing abstractedly
with a gold chain she always wore, on which Max Nugent had hung a heart
of fine rubies and diamonds.
"Ay, that she did!" said Margaret, stitching away at the frill of one of
her "leddy's" silken gowns. "And she loves him still just as much, I'll
be bound. You mark my words, Miss Violet,--I'm pretty sure the dear
woman hasna done wi' Master Boy!" and she nodded her head and pursed up
her lips mysteriously.
"You think he will want Miss Letty to help him on in his career
perhaps?" said Violet.
"I couldna tell--I canna say!" replied Margaret. "But if ever a lad had
feckless parents, it's this same lad--and if ever a bairnie had a bad
start to begin life upon, it's this same bairnie! You tell me what you
think of him, Miss Violet, after ye've had a bit look at him?"
"Oh, if he knows you are here, he'll want to see you himself, surely!"
said the girl.
Margaret looked up with a shrewd smile in her kind eyes.
"Don't ye be thinking of that, Miss Violet," she said. "There is
naebody like myself for kennin' how soon we're forgotten by the folks we
have loved. I mind me when I used to put Master Boy to bed, he would
throw his wee arms round me and say, 'I'll never forget ye, Margit,' and
it just pleased me for a while to believe it. But when I married
Plimpton, I sent the laddie a bit o' wedding cake marked 'from Margit,'
and never a word did I hear o' the lad or the cake at all. And I was a
fule to expect it; for ye see, when he was in Scotland wi' us, we had a
bit few of his old toys, and with them there was one he used to be
amazing fond of----"
"I know!" said Violet quickly--"The Cow!"
Margaret laughed.
"Yes--just the Cow!" she said--"The wee wise-looking thing you see ever
on a shelf somewhere near Miss Letty, with the old shoes Master Boy left
behind him when he first stayed with her. Well, when he came to
Scotland, he didna care for the puir beastie any more,--and that's just
how it is wi' me,--he's just as indifferent to me as he is to the toy he
put away in his babyhood. That's where all we women have to suffer, Miss
Violet,--when the bairnies we ha' loved and tended grow up to be men and
women, they never give us more thought than the playthings they have
done with!"
Violet heard, and went away, thinking gravely of many things. She was
growing a little more serious and wistful in her manner; the
difficulties and disappointments of life were beginning to suggest
themselves to her young spirit, although vaguely as yet and
dimly. She had nothing to complain of at present in her own
fortunes--except--except that Max Nugent's letters were all very brief
and scrappy. She would have liked longer and more ardent epistles from
her declared lover,--and she scolded herself for this wish, which she
said was selfish, because of course, with all his great responsibilities
of wealth, he must have a great deal to do. But despite her struggle
with herself, the little shadow of disappointment hung like a faint
cloud in her sky, and made her particularly sensitive to the possible
griefs of others.
"It must be so hard to be disappointed in persons you love!" she
thought. "To find that they are not the good or noble beings you
imagined them--it must be so hard! I do hope Miss Letty will find Boy
all that she expects him to be--and more!"
The anxiously expected Wednesday came at last, and Miss Letty ordered a
charming little luncheon in her private sitting-room, and decorated the
table herself with the loveliest flowers to welcome Boy. Violet, with
instinctive tact, arranged to go out that morning with her uncle, and
not to return till it was quite the luncheon-hour, in order that Miss
Letty might have the first meeting with her young friend alone. The dear
lady was in a great flutter; she was for once quite fastidious about her
appearance, and put on her newest gown, a soft, silver-grey silk,
trimmed with an abundance of fine old Irish point lace. And when she was
dressed, it was no exaggeration on the part of the faithful Margaret to
say she looked "quite beautiful"! With her sweet, good face, and soft
hair, now snow-white, raised from her clear, open brow, and that
indefinable grace of perfect breeding which always distinguished her,
Miss Letty looked much fairer than many a young woman in the pride of
her earliest days. And when, as the hour grew nearer for Boy's arrival,
a little pink flush coloured the pale transparency of her cheeks, she
had such a charm about her as would certainly have made fresh havoc in
the good Major's warm heart, had he seen her just at that moment. There
was an elaborate Parisian clock in the sitting-room, the pendulum of
which was an unpleasant-featured gilt nymph in a swing, and Miss Letty
looked anxiously at the ugly and inflexible young lady as she jerked the
minutes away with a seemingly infinite tedium. At last the hotel waiter
appeared with the brief announcement,--
"A young gentleman to see you, mum!"
Miss Letty advanced trembling, as a slim lad, getting on for six feet in
height, stumbled over the door-mat and entered awkwardly.
"Boy! I am so glad to see you again!"
The stripling giggled nervously.
"Yes--er,--how d'you do?" he stammered; and he sought anxiously about
for a place to put his bowler hat, and finally set it carefully down on
an empty flower-pot and began to stare doubtfully at the ceiling. But
Miss Letty was not disheartened by these signs of indifference.
"What a big fellow you are!" she said tenderly, looking at him with eyes
that were almost tearful. "I really don't think I should have known you
if I had met you in the streets by chance!"
Boy giggled again.
"N--o! I don't suppose you would!" he said. "Mother said you wouldn't!"
"Have you just come from your college?" asked Miss Letty, her heart
beginning to sink a little as she noticed that his eyes wandered
completely away from her, and considered the wall-paper more attentively
than herself.
"Yes. Some fellows came up for the exam. with me. Two are going for the
medical. I've done that!"
"Oh! And have you passed?"
"Oh yes! I'm all right!"
Boy smiled foolishly, scratched his chin, and sitting down on a high
chair measured the toes of his boots carefully together.
"What exam. are you going up for now?" asked Miss Letty, sitting down
also, and realising with a sudden pang that he was not in the least
moved to any affectionate outburst by seeing her.
"Oh, just the first one for Sandhurst. I don't expect I shall pass it."
"Why not?"
"Oh, it's pretty stiffish. I don't care much if I don't pass. There'll
be another."
Good Miss Letty was not very deeply instructed on the subject of exams.,
so she changed the subject.
"I've been a long time away in America, you know," she said. "I have
only just come back."
"Yes. So I heard."
Miss Letty looked steadfastly at him. He was a good-looking lad, thin
but well made, and delicately featured,--but his eyes were shifty and
avoided hers.
"Do you remember me at all, Boy?" she asked very tenderly.
Boy coloured and hesitated.
"I--I think I do," he said. "I stayed with you in Scotland."
"Yes. And you used to play with a little boy named Alister McDonald,--do
you ever think of him?"
Boy looked puzzled for a moment.
"Oh, yes! I know! A little round-faced chap!"
Miss Letty went on patiently,--
"Do you remember Major Desmond?"
"Yes--a little."
Miss Letty took up her sewing. She required that useful embroidery to
steady her trembling fingers.
"I asked you when we were in Scotland to write to me sometimes," she
said gently. "And you said you would. Why didn't you?"
"I did!" burst out Boy suddenly, getting very red, and remembering the
old injury which had rankled far more deeply in his soul all these years
than any remembrance of affection. "And you never answered!"
Miss Letty laid down her work with a look of surprise and indignation
darkening her gentle eyes.
"You wrote and I never answered!" she repeated. "My dear Boy, there must
be some mistake! I have never heard a word from you since you said
good-bye to me in Scotland!"
Boy's cheeks paled as suddenly as they had reddened, and he took to the
re-measuring of his boot toes.
"Mother didn't send the letter!" he said slowly,--"that's how it was. It
was not my fault. I wrote to you before I went to school in France!"
Silence fell between them. Miss Letty had much ado to keep back the
outward expression of her wounded feeling,--and, as she looked at the
lad and began to notice the air of listless indifference which
surrounded him like a natural atmosphere exhaled from his own
personality, she was conscious of a great bitterness and resentment in
her own mind. After a little, however, she managed to control herself,
and said gently,--
"Can you recollect what it was you wrote to me about?"
"Oh yes,"--Boy answered readily,--"I wrote to tell you that I was being
sent to a school in France, and asked you to try if you could help me
not to go. I was a little chap and did not like it." He paused a moment
and reddened at the recollection,--then smiled sheepishly. "But it did
not matter!"
Miss Letty thought it did matter,--but she said nothing.
"I went to France," continued Boy. "It was all right!"
"Did you like the school there?"
"Oh, it was fairly decent!" he answered briefly.
At that moment a diversion was created by the entrance of Major Desmond
and his niece. Miss Letty looked a little wearied and wistful as she
said,--
"Violet, this is Boy. Boy, this is Major Desmond's niece who has been
with me in America, Miss Violet Morrison."
Boy jerked himself up out of his chair, glanced at the young lady shyly,
and smiled vaguely.
"Won't you shake hands?" said Violet kindly.
Boy went through this act of courtesy with a curiously limp
ungraciousness, the Major staring at him the while.
"He has grown very tall, hasn't he?" said Miss Letty, with a little
sigh, as she rang the bell for luncheon to be served.
"Tall! I should think so!" replied the Major. "He's grown out of all
knowledge. Well, sir, how are you?"
"Very well, thank you!" answered Boy, without raising his eyes from
their study of the carpet.
"I suppose you don't remember me at all," pursued the Major--"do you?"
"Y--yes! You took me to Scotland to see Miss Letty."
As he uttered her name thus--"Miss Letty,"--a sudden sparkle came into
his eyes, and he looked at her with more interest than he had yet shown.
Some little brain-cell was stirred which awakened old past associations,
and a number of half-forgotten memories began to run through his mind
like the notes which form the cadence of a song. "It was always like
this," he considered--"beautiful rooms and beautiful flowers,--and
she--she always wore beautiful silks and lace like to-day,--but then, as
mother says, she's got any amount of money."
Just then, the waiter entered with the luncheon, and they all sat down
to table, Violet glancing at Boy from time to time under the shadow of
her long eyelashes, not knowing quite what to make of him.
"Well, what are you doing with yourself now?" asked the Major. "Going up
for Sandhurst?"
"Yes."
"Are you glad you are going to be a soldier?"
Boy was engaged in fastidiously picking one or two bones out of the
small piece of fish which had just been served to him, and he replied
abstractedly,--
"Oh, I don't mind it!"
"Don't mind it!" exclaimed Desmond. "But--God bless my soul!--don't you
like it? Don't you love it? Don't you think it's the finest thing a
young chap can do,--to learn how to fight for the glory of his country?"
Boy looked quite surprised at this outburst. Then it seemed to dawn upon
him in the light of a joke, for he sniggered.
"Oh, not so much as all that!" he said, and fell to carefully
considering the fish-bones again.
The Major gave a portentous cough, and swallowed his portion of fish
recklessly, somewhat as if he were swallowing a big "D----n!" by way of
sauce and flavour to the whole. Violet flushed and paled
alternately,--she was feeling worried on behalf of Miss Letty, who
looked nervous and preoccupied.
"Would you have preferred some other profession?" she asked gently,
venturing to join in the conversation.
"I never thought about it," said Boy, eating his fish now that it was
picked and prepared to his particular liking. "When I came back from
France, father sent me just where he chose---- and--that's how it is."
"Then you don't really care about it, perhaps?" queried Miss Letty,
determined to get something out of him somehow concerning his tastes or
aversions. "You don't really love the work of preparing for the Army?"
"Oh, I don't think any of the fellows care much about the work," said
Boy carelessly--"you couldn't expect them to love work! You see they
do just what their fathers and mothers want them to do. Some chaps have
a choice, I believe--but I don't know any. It's no good saying you want
to be one thing when your father wants you to be something else."
Major Desmond listened attentively, and his eyes, twinkling with anger a
moment before, softened a little.
"What did you want to be?--if ever you did want to be anything?" he
asked.
Boy hesitated and shuffled his feet under the table. Miss Letty looked
at him anxiously,--so did Violet. Catching Miss Letty's loving glance,
he took courage.
"When I was quite a small chap like,--" he explained stammeringly, "I
used to think I would be an explorer. I wanted to travel a long long way
off to strange countries, and find things nobody had ever found."
He checked himself abruptly. The waiter was handing round new dishes to
tempt the appetite, and Boy had to choose between 'vol-au-vent,' and
'cotelettes d'agneau, points d'asperges.'
"Well," said the Major--"that wasn't a bad idea. There's nothing to
prevent your doing that still. A soldier can be an explorer as well."
"Yes, but I think that all gets knocked out of you at college," said
Boy, beginning to gain more confidence as he talked. "You see, you can't
be an explorer very well, unless you can get some Government to
commission you to explore, and find you all the money and the rig-out.
And when you're an officer in the Army, you've got to obey orders, and
go where you're told,--not where you like."
This statement was unanswerable, and for a few minutes the little party
of four at luncheon ate 'vol-au-vent' and 'cotelettes d'agneau,' without
much recognition of the delicacies they were supposed to be enjoying.
Miss Letty had certainly lost her appetite. But--as was her usual
habit--she mentally scolded herself for allowing any sense of hurt or
disappointment to weigh upon her mind. "What am I bothering my head
about!" she thought: "the boy is going through the usual training
necessary for his career, and is being turned out just like other boys."
But there, though she did not admit it to herself, was the chief source
of her regret,--"just like other boys!" That was the pity and pain of
it. Ground down into the same educational pattern,--crammed with the
same assorted and classified facts,--trained by the same martinet rules
of discipline, without any thought taken as to diversity of character or
varying quality of temperament, Boy was being shaped, like a jelly in a
cook's mould, to the required size and type of the military automaton.
There would be no room left for the expansion of any new or bold form of
disposition,--no chance would be given for any originality of ideas,--he
was destined to become merely one of a set of army chess-men, moving in
strict accordance with the rules of the game,--rules, not only of the
game of war, but of the game of life. And part of this game of life,
with latter-day Englishmen, is to check all natural emotion,--kill
enthusiasm,--and let all the wonders of the world and the events of time
and history pass by, while you stand in the place where fortune or
circumstance has thrown you, never budging, and indifferent to all
things but your own precious, and (if you only knew it!) most
unimportant and ridiculously opinionated self. It was the knowledge of
this system of education that gave Miss Letty the uncomfortable little
ache at her heart, as she noted Boy's evident listlessness and cynicism;
for in the sweet, eminently idealistic, but unpractical way of women,
she had hoped something better and higher might have chanced for him.
She watched him as he ate his 'vol-au-vent,'--which, after a slow
consideration, causing much irritation to the vivacious French waiter
who served it to him, he had chosen as the most tempting of the two
'entres' offered,--and wondered what would be his ultimate fate!
In prospective fancy she saw him as an officer on halfpay,
like his father,--perhaps married to a slovenly woman, like his
mother,--and--who could tell?--finally taking to the same dissolute
courses which marked the daily existence of the Honourable Jim! And
while she was thinking this with a little inward shudder, Violet was
endeavouring to 'draw him out' on some other subject than the way in
which he considered his career,--a way which she could see was
distinctly vexatious to both her uncle and Miss Letty. Drawing towards
her one of the graceful clusters of flowers which so lavishly decorated
the table, she said,--
"How lovely the English roses are!--much sweeter than the American! Are
you fond of flowers?"
This, with a bright glance at Boy.
"I don't mind them much!" he replied indifferently.
Violet coloured a little, and was silent. Her attempt to turn the
conversation into a lighter and more pleasant vein, was frustrated.
But now the Major spoke.
"You don't 'mind' flowers?" he said. "Well, what do you mind?
Anything?"
Boy laughed.
"I don't know."
"I wish you did know!" said the Major with impressive mock-solemnity--"I
should like to ascertain from you just exactly the worth of things. I am
sure you could tell me!"
Boy took this quite seriously.
"How?" he enquired.
"Well, in this way. You are learning more at your college than I learned
in all my life. When I was a young chap drilling for the Army, I didn't
know anything except the rough-and tumble glory of it. I had no one to
'cram' me,--I passed no 'exams.' It's all altered, you see. A young
subaltern knows nearly as much (on paper) as his commanding officer
nowadays. That's why I want you to tell me things."
"Don't, Dick!" remonstrated Miss Letty with a faint smile.
"Don't--what?--Don't try to learn any more than I know at my age? All
right!--if you ask me I won't!" And the old gentleman gave one of his
hearty jolly laughs. "Now, for goodness' sake, Boy, eat some pudding!"
"I don't care for pudding, thanks!" said Boy, allowing the suggested
dainty to pass him. "I never eat sweets."
"God bless my soul!" ejaculated the Major. "Here, waiter!--pudding for
me, please!--I'm a boy! A boy!--by Jove!--I'm a child!--this young
gentleman has so far outgrown me, that I'm a positive baby!"
Boy looked vaguely surprised at the Major's hilarity over this trifle,
but he was not personally moved by it, nor did he accept it as a
good-humoured satire on himself. He smiled, and sat, civilly serene,
crumbling a bit of bread on the table; and when the luncheon was
finished, every one,--even Miss Letty--seemed glad that an
exceptionally embarrassing meal had come at last to an end.
After it, however, there was nothing more to be done. Any display of
affection towards Boy was rendered, by the impassibility of the lad
himself, out of place. Miss Letty felt that she could not have kissed
him for all the world as she used to do, and Violet saw that it would be
a hopeless business to try and remind him of his old friend Margaret,
who had tended him with such devoted care in bygone days. The Major, in
his strong interest and affection for Miss Letty, did his best to
enliven the dull atmosphere, and to coax Boy to express himself with
freedom and fearlessness and candour,--but it was no use. There was a
piano in the room, and Violet, who had a very sweet and beautifully
trained voice, gave them a pretty old 'plantation' song, eliciting from
Boy the remark that he 'had not heard that one before.' Asked as to
the health of his father and mother, he said they were both 'all right.'
"I thought your father was ill?" said Miss Letty.
"Oh yes, if you mean that kind of illness. He can't move one of his
legs,--but he's been like that a good while."
Pressed for his opinion on what he would like best in the world, he
answered, with more brightness than he had yet displayed,--
"Plenty of money."
"Why?" asked the Major.
"Well, you can do anything with it, you see. There's a fellow in our
college, for instance--he's an awfully low chap--and if his father
hadn't got what they call a 'boom' in some stock or other, he couldn't
have got in, for it's supposed to be a college of gentlemen's sons only,
and his father kept a fish-stall, so they say. And he's going in for the
Army now. You can do everything with money."
"You can't buy friends with it," said the Major.
"Can't you? I thought you always could!" And Boy smiled, the smile of
the superior cynic who knows he has uttered an unpleasant truth.
The Major was taken aback for a moment. But he returned to the charge.
"You can buy social friends, no doubt," he said,--"but not true ones."
"I shouldn't care for very true friends," said Boy calmly. "They would
be sure to interfere with whatever you wanted to do."
No one vouchsafed a comment on this remark, and Boy went on,--
"Mother says friends are always prying about and bothering you. If you
get too much of them like, they are an awful nuisance."
Still no observation was volunteered by either of the elderly people, or
the one young girl, who sat listening to these cutting statements from a
lad of sixteen.
"If I had a lot of money--heaps and heaps of money"--continued Boy--"I
could do just as I liked. I could leave the Army--go travelling--or do
nothing but just amuse myself, which of course would be best of all."
"You think so?" said the Major. "Well, you would find it a pretty hard
task to amuse yourself, if you had no fixed occupation and no friends.
You'd go to the devil, as they say, in double-quick time, without so
much as a halt by the way."
Boy laughed, but looked incredulous.
"Work," pursued the Major sententiously, "is the greatest blessing in
the world. If a man has no work to do, he should find some."
"I don't see how that is," said Boy. "People only work in order to have
no need to work."
Miss Letty suddenly rose from her chair. She was looking tired and pale.
"I think," she said gently, "I will say good-bye to you now, Boy. I am
going out for a drive,--and you--you have to go for your exam., haven't
you?"
"Yes,"--and Boy glanced furtively at the clock,--"I've got to be there
by three."
"Well, it's time you were off, then," said the Major, somewhat gruffly.
"I'll walk with you part of the way."
Boy scrambled about for a minute or two in search of his hat,--found it,
and stuck it on his head.
"Good-bye!" he said, nodding at Miss Letty.
"Take your hat off, sir!" said the Major, bluntly.
Boy looked exceedingly foolish, and blushed deeply as he removed the
offending 'bowler.' Miss Letty felt sorry for him, and came up in her
own gracious, gentle manner to pat his shoulder, and to press a little
knitted silk purse into his hand. She had made the purse, dear soul,
herself, with loving thoughts as well as loving fingers.
"Good-bye, Boy!" she said, rather sadly. "This is just a little
present--you can buy what you like with it. I hope you will pass your
exam. If you have time will you let me know?"
"Oh yes," said Boy, taking the purse, and cramming it into his pocket
without a look, or a smile, or a 'thank you,'--"as soon as I know
myself. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" said Violet, without offering her hand this time.
"Good-bye!"
The Major clapped on his hat.
"Come along!" he said brusquely.
Boy looked round,--at the ceiling, at the walls, and finally at Miss
Letty.
"Good-bye!" he said again.
"Good-bye, dear Boy!"
The door opened--closed,--he was gone,--following the Major, who, in
somewhat irritated haste, led the way.
When the echo of their footsteps had passed through the outer passage
and sunk into silence, Miss Letty sat quietly down in her arm-chair
again. Half mechanically she fingered the old Irish point lace at her
neck, and looked at the soft silken folds of her 'best' gown that swept
the floor. After all, she need not have been so particular about her
dress! Boy had not noticed her appearance with any visible amount of
affectionate liking or observation!
Still slowly and musingly she played with her delicate lace and sighed
almost unconsciously, till Violet, after sympathetically watching her
for a few minutes, could bear it no longer.
"My own Miss Letty!" she said fondly, going up to her chair and kneeling
down beside it,--"you are tired?"
"A little, my dear!"
"And--and disappointed?" murmured Violet timidly.
Miss Letty paused before replying. Then she took the girl's hand in her
own and patted it tremblingly.
"Well--I won't be a humbug about it, child!" she said with a faint
smile--"I am disappointed. Yes. I don't know why I should be, but I
am."
"He is a very nice-looking boy," said Violet soothingly. "It is only his
manner that seems so curt and ungracious. But all English boys are like
that, I think, and he is at an awkward age."
Miss Letty shook her head.
"Yes--that may be," she said. "But it is not his manner, Violet,--it is
his heart! That is what frets me. It is the sweet little heart of the
child I loved so much!--that heart is gone, Violet! Quite gone!--there
is something withered and hard in its place that is not a heart at
all--the heart has gone!"
Violet was silent.
"The heart has been killed in him," went on Miss Letty regretfully--"it
has been crushed out of him. There is no warmth--no brightness of
feeling in that starved little soul! He is not to blame. It is the fault
of his bringing-up. I am very sorry for him--very! Poor Boy!"
She sat quiet for a few minutes, trying to control the little nervous
trembling which, like a cold ague, now and then shook her thin and
delicate frame,--then she said suddenly,--
"Violet, do you know I feel very strangely about Boy!"
"Do you, my own Miss Letty?"--and Violet slipped an affectionate arm
about her--"What do you feel?"
"Well,--you will think me a very foolish old woman perhaps, my dear--but
I feel that Boy--the Boy I loved--is not here any more. He is not dead,
but he has gone!--gone in some way that I cannot explain,--but I shall
meet him in Heaven! Yes!" and Miss Letty smiled--"I shall find him
again,--I shall find the little fair soul of the child that used to call
me 'Kiss Letty'--the soul that is no longer here,--but--there!"
She raised her soft blue eyes, radiant with love and trust; and Violet
looked at her with the worship of a devotee for a shrined saint. Miss
Letty, presently meeting this upturned adoring gaze, bent down and
kissed her very tenderly.
"And so, dear girl," she continued, "we will say no more of Boy just
now. Boy is put away among an old woman's sentimental memories. The last
illusion of a life, my dear!--the last illusion of a life! Let it
go,--back to God where it came from! Because He will restore to us all
our lost beautiful things, and teach us why they were taken from us for
a little while--only for a little while...."
She pressed Violet's hand,--then, with a slight effort, rose from her
chair, and smiled cheerfully.
"Put your things on, little one!" she said--"we will go for a drive. And
we will think of nothing except just how to make ourselves pleasant and
kind to every one for the passing hour,--for that is as much a duty as
anything else in this world. Run away!--dress quickly!"
Violet kissed her, and ran off.
When she was gone, Miss Letty stood gazing into vacancy, with a
strangely wearied expression. A grey shadow, like a hint of death,
clouded her sweet old face for the first time.
"Good-bye, Boy!" she whispered softly to the silence.... "Good-bye, dear
little Boy! God bless you!"
CHAPTER X
One of the greatest among our most English of English poets has finely
expressed the melancholy transformation which one brief day may make in
human destinies, thus:--
One day! one night! yet what a change they bring!
High in the clouds the same sweet birds may sing,
The same green leaves may rustle in the air,
And the same flowers unfold their blossoms fair,--
Still Nature smile, unchanged in all her plan,
But, oh, what change may blight the soul of man!
The sun may rise as brightly as before,
But many a heart can hail its beams no more;
'Tis but one turn of earth's incessant ball,
Yet in that space what myriad hopes may fall!
What love depart! what friendship melt away!
Ay, Virtue's self may wane to her decay,
Torn from her throne, heart-placed, in one eventful day!
And if this be true--as it is,--none of us should be surprised at the
changes wrought in six years. Yet Major Desmond was so far removed from
the philosophy of indifferentism as to be more than surprised at the
complete metamorphosis of "young D'Arcy-Muir," as he now called him in
his own mind, instead of the old, familiar and endearing name of "Boy."
In half an hour's walk with him through the London streets the Major,
who had seen all sorts and conditions of men young and old,--lads
beginning their career, and veterans on the verge of finishing it,
gauged his disposition and temperament pretty correctly. Two
characteristics were particularly marked in him which did not augur well
for his future. One was a slighting contempt for women,--the result, of
course, of contact with his mother's shiftless, slovenly, useless mode
of life. Her inability to awaken either admiration or respect in her
son's mind, was a seed of mischief which was beginning to bear abundant
harvest. The other dominating point was a spirit of weariness, listless
boredom and cynicism, which might be real or might be affected,--but
which, whether it were one or the other, was indescribably irritating to
a man of the Major's frank and vigorous type. "Nil admirari" was not his
Gospel. His particular habit of life was to consider all things with
gratitude and appreciation,--to be thankful for the simple privilege of
being alive, and having eyes wherewith to see the many varying wonders
and beauties of the world which Providence had ordained to him as his
home. But it may be remarked, in passing, that this is unfortunately not
the 'habit' which is generally encouraged by the latter-day masters of
schools and colleges among their boys. They make much of the
difficulties of life,--but little of its pleasures. The hardships of
learning are insisted upon, but not the delights. The little dry
pedagogues who undertake the high and responsible business of fostering
the growth and guiding the education of young unspoilt natures, do their
best as a rule to cramp and destroy all that is fresh and eager and
enthusiastic. A young colt gallops about in the meadows, and frisks and
rolls on the soft green turf, rejoicing in his youth and strength,--but
the young boy must take his college 'sports' as he takes his
lessons,--by rule and line and with more or less severity, under the
control of a master. Absolute freedom of body and soul,--or what may be
called pure revelry in the mere fact of life, is almost unknown to the
'crammed' modern lad,--he is old before his time,--and it is no uncommon
thing to see a stripling of fourteen or fifteen quite wrinkled in face,
with that dull film in his eyes which used to be the special and
distinctive sign of extreme old age. It is a sad pity!--for youth is a
gracious thing and life is full of beauty, and the natural joy, the
opulent vivacity and radiating force of a truly young heart, are the
most cheerful of all physical influences. One of the pagan philosophers
asserts that "if a country is peopled with joyous inhabitants, that is,
those who take pleasure in innocent and healthful pastimes, in which
young men and maids take equal part, such as country games, village
feasts and dances, it is a safe and good country to live in, and you may
be sure that the people thereof are more virtuous than vicious, more
wise than foolish,--but if things are in such a condition that the youth
of both sexes are constrained to dulness, and have no mirth set forth
for them, such as meadow festivals of flowers, and harmless tripping
forth together to the sound of music, then beware, for it is a country
full of languors and vapourish discontents, where there will be
seditions and troubles, if not sooner, then late, and men will agitate
with those who labour, for excess of payment rather than excess of toil,
while honesty and open dealing will be more known by memory than present
fact."
And if, in pagan times, they could so consider the merit and national
advantage of the spirit of joy, how much more ought we, in our Christian
generation, to feel that we cannot do too much to inculcate that happy
spirit among the young,--we who have almost 'touched' immortality in the
divine teaching of Christ,--we, who know there is no death but only a
'passing on' from joy to joy!
Major Desmond was one of those few remaining 'grand old men' who,
without any cant or feigned excess of piety, believed humbly and
devoutly in the holiness and saving grace of the Christian faith. Both
as a man and a soldier,--safe at home, or face to face with death on the
battlefield, he had guided his conduct as best he could by its plain
principles, and it had, as he himself expressed it, 'carried him
through.' But it lay too close to his heart for him to willingly make
it a subject of conversation,--yet, while he talked with Boy, or rather
while he elicited certain scrappy monosyllables from him in reply to his
own easy chat, he became gradually aware that the lad was a complete
atheist,--that he had no idea whatever of God, and no sense of the
proportion and balance existing between the material and spiritual side
of things. The deep, hard cynicism which showed itself more and more as
the foundation of his character made him casual and flippant even in his
'Yes' or 'No'; and by-and-by, after trying him on various themes,--his
home, his studies, his 'sports,' his interests generally--Desmond
instinctively realised that this young and embittered scrap of humanity
was sitting in cold judgment on himself, and relegating him to the level
of a garrulous old man who did not know what he was talking about. For
irreverence to age is one of the unadmirable features of a large
proportion of the rising 'new' generation. As soon as this idea was
borne in upon his mind, the Major came to a sudden halt.
"Well, you're nearly where you want to be, aren't you?" he demanded.
Boy looked about him. They were at the corner of Trafalgar Square.
"Yes. It's just down Northumberland Avenue."
"All right!" and Desmond glanced at his watch--"Five minutes to three!
You'd better look sharp! Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" said Boy carelessly, without raising his cap, and in another
moment he had gone.
Major Desmond paused a moment, staring after him. Then he shook his
head. Then he took out his cigar-case, chose a cigar, and lit it. Then
he walked slowly and thoughtfully to his club, where he found his old
friend 'Fitz,' "of the rueful countenance," in a favourite arm-chair
near the window reading the paper.
"Hullo!" said that gentleman.
"Hullo!" responded the Major dismally.
"Where have you been?" inquired 'Fitz'--"You look as if you were down on
your luck!"
"Do I?" and Major Desmond threw himself into the opposite chair. "It is
not that. I've had a depressing companion."
"Oh!" said Fitz. "Where did you pick him up? Who was he?"
"Boy," said the Major, with a sort of grunt that was half a groan--"at
least, not Boy, but the young chap that used to be Boy."
Fitz raised his melancholy blue eyes with a bewildered expression.
"Do you mean the little fellow Miss Leslie was so fond of?"
"Yes. It's a blow to her, Fitz!--I'm sure it must be a blow!"
Fitz was puzzled, and grew more saturnine of aspect than ever.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "What's happened? Has he got anything the
matter with him?"
"He's got everything the matter with him!" said the Major, bursting
forth into hot speech--"everything! Callousness is the matter with
him--worldliness is the matter with him--indifference to affection is
the matter with him,--d----n it, sir!--general priggishness is the
matter with him! By Jove! The rascal doesn't seem to have an ounce of
real warm blood in all his body!"
The thin stern physiognomy of the worthy Captain 'Fitz' remained
unmoved, except for the faintest flickering expression, which might have
been satire, grief, surprise, scorn, or humour, whichever way the
observer chose to take it.
"Ah!" he said, letting the ejaculation escape his lips slowly, as though
it were a puff of smoke.
The Major rolled his eyes indignantly.
"Ah!" he repeated--"Is that all you can say?"
"My dear chap, what do you want me to say?" remonstrated Fitz--"There's
nothing to be said!"
"That's true!" said the Major, and relapsed into silence. But not for
long, however. Drawing his cigar out of his mouth after an interval of
meditative smoking, he began in subdued tones,--
"When I think of her, Fitz--you know who I mean--Letty,--when I think of
her sweetness and patience and goodness, and when I remember all the
pretty tender ways she had with that little fellow!--and when--after all
these years, he came to visit her to-day, and I saw her looking
wistfully at him to see if he had the smallest pulse of affection
beating in his hard young heart for her, I could have cried! Yes, I
could! I'm an old fool of course,--you can call me one if you like and
have done with it. But that's how I felt. Of course years have gone
by,--he was a child when she saw him last--but I should have
thought--yes, I should certainly have thought, that if he had any
recollections of his childhood at all, he would at least have remembered
her--and how she loved him!"
Whereupon Fitz roused himself to utterance.
"There's where you were wrong, Dick"--he said. "You have made the same
fatal mistake we all make when we think that love--love of any
kind--will last!"
The Major looked at him steadfastly, but did not interrupt him.
"It's the same thing everywhere. Men and women fall in love,--swear
eternal fidelity--and by-and-by we find them figuring in the divorce
court. Other men and women resign themselves gracefully to the monotony
of each other's companionship for life, and God sends them children to
cheer up the dullness a little, and they think those children are
perfect paragons, who will grow up to love them in their old age. Not a
bit of it! Not nowadays. Old folks are voted a bore,--and the young cub
of the present day may often be heard declaring that the 'Governor' has
had 'too long an innings,' and 'doesn't know when to die.' As for
Boy,--Miss Letty's pet Boy,--from all you tell me, he has gone; there's
only a young cub left now--a cub who doesn't care, and doesn't mean to
care about anything or anybody but himself. That's the supreme result of
modern training,--it is 'pon my soul! Boys are brought up in the code of
selfishness from the very beginning. Their mothers spoil them and foster
all their bad points instead of their good ones,--and as soon as they
begin to go about in the world, a lot of idiotic girls and women--the
kind of women who must have a masculine thing to pay court to them,
whether he be a raw youth or a seasoned old stager--get hold of them and
make shameless love to them. And their heads are of course turned the
wrong way round,--they think they are the most precious and amazing
objects in all creation,--and instead of paying court to women, and
learning to be chivalrous and reverential, they expect to be courted
themselves and admired, as if they were full-blown heroes from the
classic world of conquest. That's the way of it. Boy has no doubt caught
the fever of conceit. He probably expected Miss Letty to kneel down and
kiss his boot-ties."
"Part of your argument may be right," said the Major,--"but part of it
is entirely wrong. You said in the beginning that we all of us make a
mistake when we think that love--love of any kind--will last. Did you
not?"
"I did," admitted Fitz, looking slightly shame-faced under the calm
stare of the Major's eye.
"Well, you know that's d----d nonsense!" pursued the Major bluntly.
"You know as well as I do that I--I, for example, have loved the same
woman ever since I was thirty, and there's no change in me yet. And
Letty--Letty has loved the same ne'er-do-weel all her life, though he's
a corpse and not a very entire one by this time I should say, though she
thinks, God bless her, that he's a sort of angel-King on a throne in
Heaven--which is a pleasing and pretty picture enough, only it doesn't
seem to quite fit Harry Raikes. However, there you are, you see,--love
does last--when it is love!"
"When it is--yes--but when is it?" asked Fitz, with the smile which
so beautifully altered his features beginning to illumine his deep-set
eyes. "You see, you and Miss Leslie are old-fashioned! That's what it
is! You're old-fashioned, sir!" he repeated, getting up and prodding a
finger into the Major's waistcoat. "You belong to the last century, like
one's grandmother's old china! You are a part of the days when, if a
married woman entertained a score of lovers apart from her own husband,
she was considered a disgrace to her sex. All that is altered, my boy!
She is now a 'queen of society'! Ha, ha, ha! You believe in God's
blessing on true love! But, my dear fellow, the present generation
doesn't care whether there's a God to bless anything or not, or whether
love is false or true. It isn't love, you see. It's something else. Love
has gone out with the tinder-boxes and stage-coaches. It's all
electricity and motor-cars now--flash and fizzle through life at a
tearing pace, and leave a bad smell behind you! Ha, ha! You're
old-fashioned, Dick! I like you for it because I'm a bit old-fashioned
myself--but we're out of it,--we're old stumps of trees that can't
understand the rank and quickly withering weeds of youth that are
growing up around us to-day--weeds that are going to choke and poison
the destinies of England by-and-by!"
The Major got up, possibly moved thereto by the pressure of his friend's
fingers in the middle of his waistcoat.
"By that time you and I will be underground, Fitz," he said
half-lightly, half-sadly. "And thank God for it!--for if any harm comes
to England, I don't want to be alive to see it. I wonder if I shall be
sitting on a gold throne in Heaven, next to Harry Raikes? If so, angel
Letty will have to choose between us!"
He laughed,--and the two old friends presently left the club together
and went for an afternoon stroll through Piccadilly and the Park, where
they saw Miss Letty driving in her victoria with pretty Violet Morrison
by her side. They raised their hats to both ladies, and Fitz commented
on their looks.
"Nothing will ever make Miss Letty old," he said. "She always has the
eyes of a child who trusts both God and man."
The Major nodded approvingly.
"That's very well said, Fitz,--and it's true,--but she's had a blow
to-day. I'm sure she has. She doesn't say much--she's not one to say
much,--she may say nothing, even to me,--but she's had a blow. Boy's not
what she thought he would be. I've got a bit of a heartache over it. I'm
sorry we came back to England!"
Fitz was silent. He fully understood and participated in his old
friend's feelings, but he felt that the subject was too sore a one to be
discussed, and when he spoke again it was on a different theme.
That evening Major Desmond escorted his niece and Miss Letty to the
theatre, and just before starting, while Violet was still engaged in
putting the finishing touches to her pretty evening toilette, Miss Letty
came in alone to the Major, where he pensively waited in the
sitting-room, and said softly,--
"Dick!"
He started, and turned round, and was fairly taken aback for the moment
by the spiritual beauty of her gentle face framed in its snow-white
hair. She was fully attired for the theatre, and wore an opera-mantle of
some silvery neutral tint, showered with lace;--and a pretty flush came
on her cheeks as she met the faithful tender gaze of the man who had
loved her so loyally and so long. Having expressed his admiration of
her charm by a look, he responded,--
"Well, Letty?"
"I want you," she said, laying her delicately gloved hand on his arm,
"to promise me one thing. Will you?"
"Anything and everything in the world!" said the Major recklessly.
"It is only just this,--do not talk to me at all, or ask me what I feel,
about Boy." Her voice trembled a little,--then she went on,--"It is no
use,--it only makes me think of what might have been and what is not. I
am a little disappointed,--but then--what of that? We all have
disappointments, and it is no use brooding upon them. We only make
ourselves and others miserable. You see I loved Boy as a child;--he is
not a child now--he is getting to be a young man,--and--he does not want
me,--it is not natural he should want me. Do you understand?"
The Major was profoundly moved, but he only nodded and said,--
"Yes,--I understand!"
"He is just a college lad now,--like--like all the rest," went on Miss
Letty quietly--"and it was my mistake to have expected him to be in any
way different. He will no doubt turn out very well and be a good
soldier. But"--and she suddenly looked up with a swift glance and smile
that went straight to the Major's heart--"he is Robert D'Arcy-Muir
now,--he is not Boy!"
The Major said not a word, but he took up the little gloved hand resting
on his arm and kissed it. A moment afterwards Violet entered, looking
like a blush rose in a pretty gown of pink chiffon; and the two elderly
folks, welcoming her presence as a relief from emotion and
embarrassment, turned to admire her sweet and fresh appearance. And then
they went to the theatre, and enjoyed "David Garrick," and the subject
of Boy was avoided among them by mutual consent, both on that evening
and for many a long day afterwards.
But he was not forgotten. Day after day, night after night, Miss Letty
thought of him and wondered what he was doing, but she never heard
whether he had passed his examination or not. His mother never
wrote,--and he himself was evidently unmindful of his promise. Major
Desmond, however, kept his eyes and ears open for news of him, not so
much for the lad's own sake, as for Miss Letty's. He had friends at
Sandhurst, and to them he confided his wish to know all the information
they could get concerning "young D'Arcy-Muir," if he should eventually
go there. To which he received the reply that if the young chap did get
to Sandhurst at all, they would let him know. With this he had to be
satisfied, knowing that it would be worse than useless to enquire about
him from his parents, the Honourable Jim being half paralysed, and Mrs.
D'Arcy-Muir being incapable of giving a straight answer at any time to a
straight question.
By-and-by, however, the attention of Major Desmond and Miss Letty began
to be entirely engrossed by a new cause of anxiety and perplexity.
Violet was looking ill, and getting pale and thin, and it was evident
she was unhappy. Yet she never complained, and always tried to be
cheerful, though it seemed an effort to her.
"Look here, Letty,--what is the matter with the girl?" asked the Major
bluntly one day. "I have worried her to tell me, and she won't. Does she
tell you?"
Miss Letty's kind face clouded, and her eyes grew very sorrowful.
"No, Dick, she has not actually told me, but I can guess. She has not
heard from Max Nugent for a long time,--his letters have practically
ceased."
"Ceased!" repeated the Major, getting very red. "What do you mean,
Letty? Ceased?"
"She will not admit it," continued Miss Letty. "She will not own, even
to herself, that he is neglecting her. When I ask her if she has heard
from him, she answers me all in a nervous hurry, and assures me that it
is because he is away travelling somewhere that she has received no
letters. She says he has no time to write. But one would think that if
he loved her as he professed to love her, he would certainly find time,
or make time to write."
"Of course he would!" said the Major brusquely. "There is no power on
earth that can hinder a man from writing to the woman he loves. Even if
he were ill or dying, he could get a friend to send a wire for him. No,
no,--there is some humbug going on,--I am sure of it!" He took one or
two rapid strides up and down the room. "Letty!" he said, stopping
abruptly in front of her,--"when you were engaged to Harry Raikes did he
write to you often?"
"Not as often as I should have liked," answered Miss Letty with a faint
smile,--"but then you see he was in India,--that is a long way off--and
of course he could not possibly write by every mail."
"Couldn't he?" And the Major gave a curious grunt of incredulity. "Why
not?"
"If he could he would have done so," said Miss Letty gently but firmly.
"I am sure of that."
The Major walked up and down the room, loyally battling against the
temptation which assailed him to tell her the whole truth and nothing
but the truth.
"You never doubted him?" he asked suddenly.
"Doubted him!" And Miss Letty's eyes opened in mild half-reproachful
amazement. "Never! How can you suggest such a thing! I knew how true and
good he was, and how much he loved me,--and that is why I have devoted
all my life to his memory."
Up and down, up and down, once more strode the Major, and at the third
turn the temptation was conquered and he was himself again.
"Then according to your experience, Letty, Violet ought not to doubt Max
Nugent, because he has, as you say, practically ceased writing to her?"
Miss Letty looked puzzled.
"Well, I don't know what to say," she answered. "You see they are not
engaged,--you would not consent to an engagement till Mr. Nugent had
proved his sincerity,--and I think you were wise; but as matters now
stand, the child cannot insist on his writing to her. She has no hold
upon him, save that of his professed love and honour."
"That ought to be a strong hold," said the Major. "Honour especially. No
man has a right to win a woman's love and then throw it away again. I
must speak to Violet."
And he did. He called unexpectedly one morning to take her to a Picture
Exhibition, and after sauntering about the galleries a little, he sat
down in a retired corner with her and put his first question very
gently.
"Violet, when did you last hear from Nugent?"
The girl coloured hotly.
"Some time ago."
"How long ago?"
"I forget," she answered listlessly.
Her face was bent, and he could not see it under the shadow of her hat.
"Violet!"
Slowly she raised her head,--her eyes were full of tears. The Major
smothered an oath and strove to speak calmly.
"Look here, child: you can trust me, can't you?"
"Yes, uncle," she murmured inaudibly.
"Well, don't fret. Be a brave little woman. I will see to this for
you. It is no good living in suspense. Better know the worst at once!"
Violet furtively dashed away her teardrops, and looked at him anxiously.
"The worst ...?" she murmured.
The Major squared his shoulders resolutely.
"Look here, Violet: when we have to swallow a dose of bitter medicine,
we don't like it, but if we are told it will save our lives, we do it.
Now, in this affair of Max Nugent, the sooner your medicine is swallowed
the better. I am afraid the man is not sincere. What do you yourself
think about it?"
Violet sighed deeply.
"I do not understand it," she said, in rather a tremulous voice. "I have
written to him several times, but have had no reply. You may as well
know all. The last letter I had from him was quite two months ago, and
in that he said he was coming to Europe immediately--to Paris first--and
he promised to come on to London afterwards and see me."
"And was that letter exactly what you expected it to be?" asked the
Major, looking at her narrowly. "Was it all that you had a right to
expect?"
Violet hesitated, then answered truthfully,--
"No. It was just the letter--of a friend."
The Major rose.
"Come along now," he said. "I will see into this for you. A millionaire
like Nugent can't hide his light under a bushel. I will find out where
he is, and see him myself, if I have to cross the ocean to do it."
Violet looked up at him with tearful eyes.
"You are good to me, uncle!" she said; "but--you know--if he does not
care for me any more----"
"You do not care for him!" finished the Major. "That's what you must
say, and that is what you must feel."
The girl shook her head.
"Ah, you may shake your head!" said Desmond; "but I am not going to let
you waste your life as Miss Letty has wasted hers, all for the love of a
rascal. You do not know Letty's history. I do. She was engaged to a man
I knew, and when he was out in India well away from her he was getting
ready to marry some one else and throw her over. But he caught fever and
died--just in time. Letty never knew that he had been false to her. I
knew--but I never told her. And I never mean to tell."
Violet laid her hand on his arm caressingly.
"Uncle! And you loved her yourself!"
"Now how did you find that out?" said the Major with a little smile.
"Well! You are right--I have loved her nearly all my life. And we have
rubbed on pretty well as friends together--and we have kept the memory
of that dead rascal as holy as if he were a saint. So you see I know
something about love and loyalty, little girl--and I can enter
thoroughly into your feelings. But fortunately you are very young, and
if Nugent turns out a failure your heart will be sore for a while, but
it will mend."
"Never, uncle!" said Violet. "I can never care for any one else."
"Nonsense!" said the Major. "You must not talk like that at nineteen.
This is your first love, I grant--but one gets over first love like the
measles."
"Did you?" asked Violet anxiously.
"God bless my soul! Of course I did. When I was nineteen I fell in love
with my father's cook. She was a very pretty woman, and made jam puffs
divinely. She married the grocer round the corner,--and somehow I lived
through it. I was nearly thirty when I found Letty--and I have loved
her ever since."
Violet pressed his arm but said nothing.
"Now come along," said the Major cheerfully. "Don't worry yourself, thin
yourself, or lose your looks. Nobody will thank you for that except your
kind female friends. We will clear this little matter up somehow. And I
am sure you are far too high-spirited and straightforward to care for a
man who turns out to be a dishonourable scamp--though mind, I don't say
he is dishonourable till I have proved it. But unless he has been
kidnapped for his millions by brigands, I don't see any excuse for his
silence. If he were ill he could send you word,--so there is only one
inference to be drawn from his conduct, and that is, that he doesn't
mean to keep his promise to you. It is hard for you to look at it in
that light, but you must try, Violet--you must try. If he does turn out
a villain, I will take care he gets a jolly good horsewhipping."
Violet uttered an exclamation.
"Oh no, uncle!"
"'Oh no, uncle?'--I say 'Oh yes, uncle!' Leave this to me, child! There
are too many scamps sneaking about in society embittering and spoiling
the lives of innocent women, and a few sound thrashings on the backs of
such fellows would be pure joy and relief to the feelings of the
majority. I should like to thrash a millionaire!--especially if his
conduct is on the level of a play-actor, who is the worst kind of
unprincipled rogue between this world and the nearest gallows." And the
Major chuckled. "I did thrash one of those painted fellows once, and
by Jove!--how I enjoyed it!"
Violet looked up at him timidly with a faint smile.
"It was in India," said the Major, his eyes twinkling and his cheeks
beginning to crease up with wrinkles of satisfaction at the
recollection. "There came what was supposed to be a tiptop theatrical
company to the place where we were, and among the players there was a
thin, white-faced fellow, as conceited as they make them, who 'made up'
to look a king or a villain, whichever you fancied--though, to my mind,
the villain suited his style of beauty best. Well, when he was off the
stage, he pretended to be a very fine gentleman indeed,--explained that
he had taken to the stage as a freak--that his mother had nearly broken
her heart over it, and all that sort of ancient stock-in-trade nonsense;
and he pushed himself by degrees into the society of the women, till he
came across a little creature who was fascinated by his artful ways,
thought him a budding 'genius,' and listened to his long stories as if
he were an angel singing. And then he poured out more confidences: he
told her how he had in an evil hour married a woman he could not love,
and that she--the little creature aforesaid--was his own true mate, and
all that kind of gibberish. Poor little soul!--she believed him, and was
for immolating herself on the altar of what she believed to be an
'ideal' passion. Only there happened to be another little creature
round, to whom he had told the selfsame tale, and she, having more
spirit in her than the first one, came to me and told me all about it.
'And I have written letters to him!' she said, stamping her little foot
and flashing her pretty eyes--'and he won't give them back--the coward!'
'What do you want me to do, my dear?' I said. 'Thrash him!' she replied.
And of course I did. I went for him one day when he was tripping
gingerly out on his tiptoes from the place where he put his rouge and
false legs on. I said, 'Look here, Hamlet--King Richard--As you Like
It--or whatever you are,--you are a scoundrel! Make yourself into all
the people that ever blessed or disgraced the world, you are an
unprincipled cad! I am not Hamlet, thank God!--I am a British officer,
and though you are not worth kicking, you are worth whipping for the fun
of it. Now, Hamlet, look out!' He smiled pallidly, and said 'Sir!'--but
the rest of his sentence was lost. I forget what happened afterwards,
till I saw him picked up by two coolies, and carried off. He couldn't
act for some time afterwards,--he was ill with a kind of influenza! But
I got back the girl's letters for her."
The Major laughed heartily over this reminiscence, and enjoyed himself
very much for several minutes, till he noticed the pretty pensive face
of the girl at his side. Then he scolded himself violently and called
himself a brute for not considering her feelings more tenderly.
"Come, come, don't be downhearted, little woman!" he said kindly. "Take
a bright face to Miss Letty. She has her own trouble to bear--and I can
see she frets over it too, though she never mentions it, and has asked
me not to talk to her about it. But I am sure she had set a good many of
her hopes on Boy."
"Ah, yes!" and Violet's quick sympathy showed itself in her expressive
face. "I know how disappointed she was in him! She had been building up
an ideal 'Boy' who did not exist."
"And you have perhaps been building up an ideal Max who does not exist,"
said her uncle good-humouredly. "What a pity it is that all the best and
nicest women in the world will persist in imagining men to be so much
better than they are! We don't deserve it--we always fail to come up to
the required standard."
"Not always," said Violet, her eyes beaming on him affectionately. "You
never fail!"
The Major laughed.
"Oh, don't idealise me, for Heaven's sake, child!" he said. "I am just
a bluff old man with a highly inflammable temper and an average sense of
honour that's all. Now try and put your sad thoughts away for the
present, and take Miss Letty for your example,--you can't do better.
Always bright, always patient, always brave,--she takes everything God
sends her in the same equable spirit, and does her best to keep a
cheerful heart and cheerful face through everything."
"Yes--but remember," said Violet tremulously, "thanks to you, she has
never known that her lover was false to her!"
The Major was taken aback by this pathetic observation, and pulled his
white moustache dismally.
"True!--I forgot! She has never known."
He gave a compassionate side-glance at his niece, and said no more. They
returned to the hotel in silence,--but that afternoon Violet had a long
quiet chat with Miss Letty all alone and told her frankly all the extent
of her troubles, doubts and fears. After this her heart was considerably
relieved, and she felt more resigned. For Miss Letty was the wisest and
tenderest of counsellors, and out of the store of her life's experience
she was able to bring many consolations and suggestions of peace.
But the storm which had been so mysteriously gathering over Violet's
life was ready to break more suddenly and heavily than either of her
kind guardians knew,--and scarcely a week had elapsed since her talk
with her uncle Desmond, when the fashionable worlds of London, Paris and
New York were electrified by what was set forth late one evening in bold
headlines on all the newspaper placards as "Great Society Scandal."
Major Desmond heard the news first at his club, and promptly clapping on
his hat, took a hansom, and urging its driver to his utmost speed,
dashed through the streets to Miss Letty's house in Hans Place, whither
she had recently returned to set things in order after her vacating
tenants.
"Where's Violet?" he demanded, as he burst into the drawing-room and
startled his gentle old friend out of a mild little doze in her
arm-chair.
Miss Letty gazed at him affrighted.
"My dear Dick! What is the matter? Violet is out. She has gone to the
theatre with some friends."
The Major sank into the nearest chair with a groan.
"Then it's all up!" he said. "She will hear everything before she gets
home!"
Miss Letty gazed at him, hopelessly bewildered.
"Hear what? You alarm me, Dick! Is anything wrong?"
And she trembled from head to foot as she laid a hand pleadingly on his
arm. He looked up at her, and saw how nervous she was,--how her slight
worn old frame shook with the agitation she sought to repress, and he at
once cursed himself for his impetuous brusquerie.
"What a brute I am to frighten you!" he said, getting up as quickly as
he had sat down, and taking her hand tenderly in his own. "Come back to
your chair, Letty,--sit down,--there now!--don't tremble so! You will
want all your strength to help Violet, poor child! That d----d Nugent
has run off with Lord Wantyn's wife--the low rascal! If I ever get hold
of him I will----"
He stopped, silenced by a gesture from Miss Letty's trembling hand.
"Wait a minute, Dick," she said faintly. "I don't quite grasp it. Do you
mean to say that Max Nugent,--the man who professed to love, and asked
to marry our little innocent Violet,--has taken another man's wife away
from him?"
The Major nodded violently.
"Yes--it's in all the papers. Wantyn's wife, 'the beautiful Lady
Wantyn,' as the feminine asses of the fashion papers call her. He has
taken her--or she has gone with him--one is as bad as 'tother. Anyhow
they are off--sloped from Paris last night, reached the South of France
this morning--Nugent's yacht was waiting for him at Marseilles--and they
are away, the Lord knows where! And everybody will sympathise with the
miserable cad because he is a millionaire. I tell you it is in all the
papers--and one penny-a-liner has already put in print that it is the
outcome of an 'old and romantic' love affair! Old and romantic! By Jove!
A little old and romantic treatment of the right sort would do them both
good,--a few of the old and romantic notions which put a bullet through
a rascal's head, and whipped a bad wife at the cart's tail! That would
be the proper 'old and romantic' way to deal with them!"
But Miss Letty sat very still, her hands clasped in her lap,--her eyes
full of pain.
"My poor Violet!" she murmured at last. "Poor little girl! Dick, what
shall we do?"
"I don't know," said the Major despairingly. "I came here post haste to
ask you to keep the newspapers away from her for a day or two,--but it's
no use now--if she has gone to the theatre she will see Nugent's name
on all the placards. And if she does by chance miss it, one of her
friends will be sure to see it and tell her."
"You forget, Dick," said Miss Letty, "that no one in England knows of
Max Nugent's connection with her, and only two or three in America. That
is very fortunate! How wise you were in not allowing any engagement to
take place! You have saved Violet much indignity. It is true the poor
child will have to bear her trouble alone, but I think that is better
than if she had to endure the possibly contemptuous pity of her
friends."
"Yes, that's true," said the Major. "There would be no real sympathy
whatever for her,--all the feeling in our latter-day social sets goes
out to the moneybags. Nugent's a villain,--but he will be turned into a
hero by the time Wantyn gets his divorce. Didn't I tell you I never
liked that glass in his eye?"
Miss Letty could not smile. She was thinking of Violet. She glanced at
the clock.
"Violet will soon be coming back," she said. Poor, poor Violet! I dread
seeing her face! I think I should have died if my Harry had been false
to me!"
The Major was here afflicted with a violent cough, which kept him
barking hoarsely for some minutes.
"Dear me!" said Miss Letty, solicitously watching him as he got redder
and redder in the face and kept on coughing. "I am afraid you have
caught cold, Dick! Did you have your overcoat on when you came just
now?"
"Yes, I had everything on," said the Major, still struggling with the
strange obstruction in his throat. "Everything that was necessary." Here
he suddenly recovered himself and relapsed into calm. "When do you think
Violet will be back?"
"She cannot be later than eleven or half-past," replied Miss Letty. "But
we must be very careful. She may not have seen the news as yet."
"I am afraid there is no hope of that," said Desmond bitterly. "It is
all over the place. You know what these wretched papers are,--anything
to sell their copies. A scandal is treated to the biggest headlines,
just as the dress of a stage woman gets more notice than the death of a
great man. Oh, she's seen it, you may be sure!"
Miss Letty clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.
"We must be brave, Dick," she murmured. "We must not let her see us
break down--we must not pity her too much."
"Pity her!" ejaculated the Major. "I feel more like congratulating her
on a narrow escape from getting a bad husband. Only it won't do to put
it that way. She might think it unkind----"
"Hush!" said Miss Letty, lifting a warning finger and growing very
pale, as the wheels of a carriage came to a stop outside. "There she
is!"
The Major held his breath, listening. Violet's clear young voice could
be heard distinctly saying--"Good-night! Thanks for a delightful
evening."
The Major turned his eyes round amazedly on Miss Letty.
"'A delightful evening!' She cannot have heard----"
The door-bell rang, and to the two elderly people who were in such
suspense, its peal seemed to waken loud and discordant echoes through
the house, suggestive of everything horrible. Another minute, and Violet
entered--looking no longer merely pretty, but radiantly beautiful. Her
eyes were dark and brilliant,--her cheeks were flushed,--she held her
little head up like a queen, and her light step as she advanced was
almost regal in its pride and grace.
"Uncle Desmond!" she exclaimed, smiling--"You here!"
The Major instinctively scrambled out of his chair and reverentially
stared at the dazzling creature who seemed to be suddenly transformed
from a mere slip of a girl into an exquisite woman.
"Yes--I am here!" he stammered.
Violet loosened her cloak, threw it aside, and put her arms round his
neck and kissed him, still smiling into his eyes with such a straight
sweet look that he was quite bewildered. Then she dropped on her knees
by Miss Letty's chair, and raised her fair young face to the equally
fair old one bending so anxiously over her.
"Darling Miss Letty!" she said. "Why did you sit up for me? You must be
tired! My own Miss Letty! And Uncle Desmond coming here so late too!"
They glanced at one another, silent and sorely puzzled. Did she know? Or
did she not know? What was it that made her so unusually royal and proud
in her bearing? Still kneeling by Miss Letty, she looked up at the
perplexed Major with that new and wonderful brilliancy in her eyes which
seemed to be the reflection of a strong soul-flame within, and said,--
"Dearest uncle! Don't be unhappy about me! I know what brought you here
to-night--I know everything!"
"You do, Violet?" murmured Miss Letty, catching the girl's hand in
hers--"Are you sure you do?"
"Am I sure?" And Violet sprang up from her kneeling position, and stood
with her fair head thrown back and her whole face expressing a grand
disdain--"Indeed I am! I am sure that the man I thought a gentleman, is
beneath contempt! I am sure that the love I bore him for what I thought
his goodness, his chivalry, his honour, was the love for a fancied being
of my own heart who did not exist! I am sure that I do not, and could
not love a man who has deliberately disgraced himself and ruined the
honour of a woman! I am sure--yes--that if I met Max Nugent now I would
pass him by as beneath the notice of an honest girl! I mean it!"
continued Violet, her eyes glowing more brilliantly than ever with the
intensity of her thought. "Yes! for though I am only a girl, I have
never done any harm to any one that I know of, nor would I hurt any one
by so much as a word if I could help it, and so far at least I am above
this millionaire, who has made himself too mean for even a man to
know!"
The Major brought his hand down with a vigorous slap on the table near
which he stood.
"There spoke Jack Morrison's girl!" he exclaimed. "Blood will out! you
have got your father's mettle in you! Bravo! Let the fellow go to the
dogs in his own way and be d----d to him!--excuse me!"
"Wait, uncle!" said Violet, looking at Miss Letty's pained and anxious
face with great tenderness in her eyes. "You must not think I don't
suffer! I do! When I saw that horrible news to-night--when I heard
people talking of it, I felt like killing myself! Yes!"--for Miss Letty
uttered a piteous exclamation,--"Yes, dear Miss Letty, you must not
think I don't feel. I feel cruelly!" Her lips trembled, her voice shook.
"But you have both been so good to me--you have taken such care of me,
that I should be a wicked, ungrateful girl if I thought of myself only.
I think of you--dear kind Uncle Desmond!--darling sweet Miss Letty!
and I will try to bear it bravely, I will indeed! I am trying now. Don't
you see I am? My heart is wounded, and the wound hurts--yes, it hurts!
But I will try--I will try hard, that the pain may make me better!"
And here, her pride breaking down entirely, she fell again on her knees
beside Miss Letty, and buried her head in her lap, sobbing bitterly.
Quietly Miss Letty laid her two hands over the soft hair, stroking it
gently,--and controlling her own tears, she made a gentle sign to the
stricken Major to go. With a mute glance of farewell tenderness, that
gallant officer stole out of the room on tiptoe,--and pausing in the
hall outside, wiped his eyes and blew his nose guardedly lest he should
make too much noise.
"God bless my soul!" he ejaculated. "These women beat everything! Break
their hearts, and they say the pain shall make them better! 'Pon my
soul! What brutes we men are--what revolting, dirty, selfish, downright
brutes! We don't deserve ever to have had mothers. Here, let me get out
of this!"
And opening the street door gingerly, he closed it as gingerly after
him, and stood for a moment in the street with the guilty air of a
burglar who had just abstracted some valuable plate. And again he blew
his nose--with greater freedom and vigour this time.
"Poor little girl!" he murmured. "Poor little Violet! Only
nineteen!--and faces the music like an old warrior of a hundred
battles! Brave child--brave child! And by Jove, what a beauty she's
growing! A positive beauty! Never noticed it till to-night, 'pon my
soul."
And a couple of lines suddenly came into his head as it seemed from
nowhere,--lines he remembered vaguely, as having heard when quite a lad:
" ... This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."
"That's it!" he said. "That's what's the matter with her! She is crowned
with that crown--poor little Violet! And by Jove she wears it royally!
And she will rule her sorrow and conquer it with a fine strength and
firm spirit,--and she will be a queen among women yet!--my little
broken-hearted girl!"
And he wafted a kiss back to the windows of Miss Letty's house as he
pulled his hat over his eyes and walked away.
CHAPTER XI
After a storm comes a calm, and the old proverbs which tell us that the
longest lane must have a turning and the darkest cloud a silver lining
are not without something of a cheery note in their constant
reiteration, like the repeated warble of a thrush telling us of the
certainty of spring. And Violet Morrison soon began to prove these
old-fashioned truths for herself, though the sudden and ruthless
destruction of her first love dream had cast a shadow over the bright
opening of her life, and had made her graver and more thoughtful than
her youth and beauty warranted. Her troubles were none the less hard to
bear, when the recalcitrant Max Nugent, weary of his connection with
Lady Wantyn, promptly severed it as soon as her husband divorced that
famous "beauty," and sought to make his peace with the innocent girl
whom he had so deeply wronged. Again and again he wrote to her and
implored her to forgive him and to marry him,--but she answered none of
his letters. The first faith and devotion of her heart were killed, and
she knew she could never trust him, but he very persistently urged a
renewal of his attentions in spite of the curt return of his letters
through the Major's hands, and she was therefore very glad when her
uncle and Miss Letty decided to take her abroad for a time on a tour
through France, Italy and Spain, as this gave her freedom, and an escape
from the constant pleading of her former lover. The interest in new
countries, and the constant distraction of thought caused by the various
wonders and beauties of the shifting panorama, served as an excellent
mental and moral tonic, and braced up all the energies of her mind. They
stayed abroad, residing sometimes in one beautiful place, sometimes
another, for about three years, and it was while they were wintering in
Palermo in the last year of their wanderings that the Major received a
letter which gave him the burden of another secret which he had to keep
from Miss Letty in addition to the one concerning the "dead rascal"
Harry Raikes. The letter was from an old friend and fellow-officer, and
among other items of the news he gave was the following:--
"By the way, you asked me to tell you if I ever heard any news of
D'Arcy-Muir's son. I have heard something, and I expect it won't please
you. He passed by the skin of his teeth into Sandhurst,--and the other
day was expelled for being drunk and kicking up a disorderly row. It is
a bad job for the young chap, but what's in the blood will out--and I
suppose he has caught the drink disease from his father. He has ruined
his military career at the outset."
Long and deeply did the good Major ponder over this piece of depressing
intelligence. He read it in the courtyard of the hotel in Palermo where
they were just then staying, a courtyard which, as is the custom in
Southern climes, presented the appearance of a fairy flower-garden,
festooned with climbing plants in blossom, with oranges ripening in the
warm sun, and odours of mimosa, heliotrope and violets on the air.
"Expelled for being drunk"! The news seemed an infamy and an insult, in
such a scene of beauty as that which he looked upon.
"God bless my soul!" he murmured disconsolately, fixing his eyes on a
fair cluster of white clematis swinging above his head. "It seems to me
that some of us aren't fit to inhabit this planet! There's everything
beautiful in it, and everything is wisely ordained,--and it is only we
who make the mischief and create the trouble. 'Expelled for being
drunk'! And that kind of thing ends in being expelled from the world
altogether before one has served one's time. What would Letty say!"
He sighed heavily,--but in a few minutes of consideration decided that
it would be worse than foolish to tell her.
"Let her keep her little ideal somewhere in her heart," he said to
himself. "Don't let me be such a great blundering idiot as to smudge all
the picture out for her. She believes in Harry Raikes,--she may as well
believe in Boy as long as she can. And if anyone tells her what's
happened, it won't be me!"
And he steadily adhered to this resolution. It was easy to do so, as
Boy's name was never mentioned by Miss Letty now, and all her thoughts
seemed taken up with Violet. He put away his friend's letter unanswered,
carefully marking the date on which he received it,--and as he
calculated that Boy must be getting on now for twenty, he shook his head
and decided that everything, so far as "that unfortunate young chap" was
concerned, was rather hopeless.
"However, it's no use blaming the lad himself too severely," he
considered--"He has had everything against him--his parents have both
shown him the worst of examples. His nature was warped at its very
commencement and in its very growing--and if he takes to the bottle like
his father and runs down-hill at a tearing speed, the fault doesn't rest
entirely with him."
In the spring of that same year they returned to London, and "settled
down," as the saying is, in order that Violet might take up the career
her heart was pining for--that of a thoroughly trained nurse. She was
never happier than when she could soothe pain and alleviate suffering,
and she was altogether eminently fitted for the profession she sought to
adopt. Miss Letty did not deter her, nor did her uncle, for they both
saw that work and active interest in the welfare of others was the only
way to make her life interesting to herself. She had really no need to
work, for Miss Letty had, though Violet knew it not, left her a
considerable fortune in her will, and of course Major Desmond, though
not a rich man, had made over to her everything he possessed,--but the
fact of having money is not sufficient to fill lives which are strong
and earnest, and which would fain prove to God that they are worth
living. So Violet with her firm faith, pure heart and gentle manner,
went into the forests of difficulty, unarmed and fair as Una in
Spenser's famous poem, and studied hard, consecrating herself heart and
soul to the work she had undertaken, with the usual result of all
earnest endeavour--complete success. Max Nugent had long ceased to
importune her for the mending of the broken threads of affection,--and
of this she was glad. Her disappointment in her first love had, however,
deprived her of any interest or expectation of marriage for herself,--in
fact the idea had become repugnant to her mind. One day her uncle asked
her,--
"Are you going to devote all your life to the memory of Max Nugent, as
Letty has devoted hers to the lost and gone Harry Raikes?"
Violet smiled.
"No, uncle. I have been undeceived--Miss Letty keeps her illusion. I
never think of Max now."
"Well, do you ever think of anybody else?" demanded the Major.
"No."
"Why not?"
Violet laughed outright.
"Dearest uncle! I cannot fall in love to order! I don't much like the
men I see,--they don't want me, and I don't want them. Leave me alone to
work, dear uncle,--I love my work--I am useful--I can help a great many
people to bear their troubles,--and it will be all right for me. If I am
to marry, why, I shall,--if not, I shan't."
And she kissed him and slipped away.
Meanwhile, in the self-same monster metropolis of London, where Violet
went daily to her work in the hospital--where the Major divided his days
between his club and Miss Letty's always charming house--and where Miss
Letty herself, growing more feeble and ailing with years, was content to
sit very much at home with her embroidery,--Boy, who had unconsciously
been a link in the chain of their three lives, was drifting like a wreck
in a vast ocean. The terrible blow of his expulsion from Sandhurst had
been taken by his parents as a deadly injury to themselves,--and for the
shame, the misery, the utter breaking-down of the lad's own life and
ambitions, they, his progenitors, took no thought and had no pity. The
Honourable Jim, half-paralysed as he was, had plenty of strength left
for swearing, and used oaths in plenty to his son, calling him a "d----
d low rascal."
"You don't seem to belong to me at all!" he shouted, his red face
becoming purple with rage and excitement. "D----n it, sir, I am a
gentleman--my father was a gentleman, but you--you are a blackguard,
sir! D----n it!--when I took my glass I took it like a gentleman, I
didn't go about disgracing myself and my profession as you have done.
You had better enlist if they'll have you. Anyhow you must do something
for your bread--I can't afford to keep you!"
Boy heard in absolute silence. He was too completely scornful of life
and the ways of life to care to remind his father that he himself had
been one long disgrace to his son from that son's babyhood--and that his
paralytic condition was altogether owing to his indulgence in strong
drink,--What was the good? More oaths and a redder face would be the
sole result. And his mother? Had she one word of pardon or of sympathy
for him in his deep humiliation? Not she! Embedded in fat, all she could
do was to shake her double chin at him over a mountain of maternal
bosom.
"It's always the way," she said, dabbing a handkerchief into her eyes,
"when good mothers do everything for their sons! They have to suffer!
You have broken my heart, Boy!--your mother's heart! All my hopes of you
are ruined! I don't feel as if you were my Boy! I'm sure I don't know
what you are going to do. We have no fortune, as you are perfectly
aware--we can't afford to keep you idling about, doing nothing!"
Boy, tall, pale, handsome, and with an indefinable air of languor and
scorn about him, smiled wearily.
"Don't trouble yourself, mother!" he said. "I will earn enough bread to
keep me alive, if I do it by sweeping a crossing. Good-bye!"
"Where are you going?" demanded his mother, somewhat frightened at his
set face and blazing eyes.
"Do you care?" And he laughed bitterly. "I'm going--to the devil, I
suppose!"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir moaned and dabbed her eyes again.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" she wailed. "When I think of all the sacrifices I
have made to send you to college--and all the trouble I have had, really
it seems too dreadful! A mother's life is martyrdom--complete martyrdom!
Why don't you go and hunt up old Miss Letty?"
Then, and quite suddenly, Boy flared up. "Miss Letty! The Miss Letty who
wanted to adopt me as a child--and you wouldn't let her? Not I! It would
have been a jolly sight better for me perhaps if I had been with
her--but to go to her now--now, when I am expelled"--he choked at the
word and had a struggle to go on--"and in disgrace,--now! No, mother,
never!"
With a strange gesture, half of fury, half of despair, he turned and
left her and went out of the house. His mother was far too unwieldy and
comfortable in herself to rise from her chair and enquire where he was
going, and though she called "Boy!" once as he disappeared, he did not
hear her.
He had two or three pounds in his pocket, and rather than put up with
any more useless reproaches and complaints at home, he decided to take a
cheap lodging somewhere near the Strand, and seek for work,--any kind of
work.
"It's all the same," he said with a sort of cynical philosophy which had
come of "cramming" and the weariness resulting from that pernicious
system--"whether one sweeps out an office or controls it, work of every
kind is simply work. It only differs in the quality and the pay."
In a few days, through the help of a young fellow he had known at
Sandhurst, one who was unaffectedly sorry for his disgrace, he got a
place as assistant clerk in an agency office. It was dull business, but
he drudged through it uncomplainingly, and earned enough to keep himself
going. Sometimes a vague idea occurred to him that he would go on the
stage.
"Everyone does that when they are down on their luck!" he said. "I might
begin as a super. But if I began as one I expect I should stay as one,
for I haven't an idea of acting. However, some people would say that is
an advantage. Because if you can act, you may never get an
engagement!"
He took to going to the theatre of an evening, and studying the various
antics and grimaces of all the puppets in the different shows. Sometimes
it amused him,--more often it bored him. But for a lonely and
downhearted lad as he was, it was better to sit among human beings in
the warmth and light, with the sound of music about him, than to be all
alone in his cheap lodging, brooding on his miseries. One night he saw a
very pretty little play performed, in which the heroine was a maiden
lady who had made the mistake of loving where she was not loved.
Something--a mere trifle of pathos--a touch of sentiment in one scene,
suddenly called Miss Letty to his mind. Quite involuntarily, and almost
as if his brain had taken to acting independently of himself, he began
to retrace his life, and follow it backward step by step to his
childhood's days, till gradually, very gradually, small incidents and
circumstances began to arrange themselves like the pieces of a puzzle,
and he remembered a number of things he had long forgotten. Again he saw
himself rambling down by the sea-shore, a solitary, sad little fellow,
talking to Rattling Jack,--again he saw Miss Letty's house in Scotland;
and the memory of the last walk he had taken with her there through the
Pass of Achray came back to him as freshly as if it had only happened
yesterday.
Though his eyes were fixed on the stage he saw an entirely different
picture from that which the actors were representing--a picture which
had been blurred and blotted out from his mind for many years by the
heavy mass of information which had been thrown at him to digest as best
he might in the shortest possible time. This obscuration of mental
faculty was beginning to clear like a thick fog away from the mirror of
his brain, and with a strange pang of regret he recalled the gentle
face, the soft voice, the sweet and kindly ways of the good woman who
had loved him so much when a child. As soon as the play was ended he got
up and went out with the rest, but lingered near the theatre door while
the crowd of fashionable and unfashionable folk were hustling themselves
and each other into cabs and carriages, watching each face as it passed
by and wondering if by chance Miss Letty might be among them. Or if not,
perhaps Major Desmond, to whom he would at once tell his miserable
story,--the story of his disgrace at Sandhurst, which had not been so
much his fault as that of a "superior" officer who had tempted him to
drink and had laughed at him when drunk, himself escaping scot-free when
the matter was inquired into, and the unhappy boy whom he had led to
ruin was expelled. Yes--it might be well to confide in Major
Desmond,--he would do so, he resolved, the very next day. With a deep
sigh he roused himself from his reverie, and moved away from the
threshold of the corridor to the theatre, where he had been standing,
when suddenly his arm was touched timidly and a sweet anxious voice
said,--
"I beg your pardon!--but would you mind----! Might I ask you to find me
a cab? I have missed my father in the crowd--I am all alone!"
He turned and looked at the speaker, and was quite startled by the
exquisite beauty of the face uplifted to his own. Such large eloquent
dark eyes!--such beautiful black curly hair!--such an exquisite
complexion!--a smile that fairly dazzled him!--and a figure of the most
girlish and fairylike grace to crown and complete all these attractions!
Hastily he raised his cap, and blushed hotly at the extreme honour he
felt at being spoken to by such a beautiful woman.
"Do you mind?" murmured the fair one again. "I am afraid it is very
dreadful of me to ask you!--but papa must have taken the carriage--he
must have thought I had gone home with some other friends who were here
to-night. And I do feel so very nervous,--I have never been left alone
anywhere!"
Boy started from his stupor of admiration into instant action.
"I'll get you a cab directly--of course I will," he said. "Just sit down
here in the corridor--it's very draughty though, I am afraid--won't you
catch cold?"
"I have a warm cloak, thank you," said the bewitching siren, smiling up
at him. "Thank you so much!"
"A hansom or a four-wheeler?" asked Boy.
"Oh, anything! I am so sorry to trouble you!"
Boy dashed off into the street. It never for a moment occurred to him
that the young lady could just as well have asked the same attention
from one of the stalwart policemen on guard near the theatre door, and
that perhaps it would have been more in keeping with the proprieties if
she had done so. He soon secured a hansom, the smartest and cleanest he
could find, and ran back to the charming creature who had so confidingly
thrown herself upon his protection.
"Oh thank you! But won't you come with me?" said the beautiful heroine
of this dramatic incident. "Please do! Come home and see papa! He will
be so glad!" Nothing could have been more winning than the innocent
and childlike way in which she gave this invitation. She made it all the
more irresistible by pressing her little daintily gloved fingers on
Boy's arm,--a touch which thrilled him through and through.
"I shall be so frightened," she went on, "in a cab all alone! Please see
me home, if only to the door!"
"All right," said Boy resolutely. "I'll come!"
He assisted her into the hansom with the greatest tenderness, and
carefully tucked her pretty skirts about her tiny feet,--oh! what
charming skirts, all soft and silken and frilled and rustling, like the
leaves of fringed French poppies!
"What address?" he inquired.
She gave him a number and street near Sloane Square, and he, confiding
the same to the cabman, sprang in beside her, and they rattled away
together through the streets, Boy delighted with the adventure and the
pleasure of being chosen as the protector and cavalier of so fascinating
a being as his companion.
"Isn't this fun?" she said, her eyes sparkling like jewels in the light
reflected from the cab lamps. "I feel so safe now! You ought to know my
name, I think. Shall I tell you?"
"If you don't mind," answered Boy, still troubled by a tendency to blush
at his own temerity--"I should like to know it, so that I might remember
it--and you--always!"
This was a fairly good hit, and was promptly responded to on the part of
the fair one, by a modest droop of the head and tender side glance.
"How sweet of you to say--that!" she murmured, "but I am afraid you
will soon forget. My name is Lenore de Gramont. I am the only daughter
of a French nobleman, the Marquis de Gramont."
Boy blushed more hotly than ever. What a position for him! Here he was,
in a hansom cab, with the daughter of a French Marquis! He did not know
whether he ought to be proud or humiliated!
"Papa is a very clever man"--went on the charming Lenore
confidingly,--"he has a beautiful castle in France, but he is so fond of
England--oh, so fond!--He would rather live in quite little
apartments in England than in a palace in France!"
"Really!" said Boy.
"Yes! And he is so fond of Englishmen. He adores them! You are English?"
"Yes," answered Boy. "My name is Robert D'Arcy-Muir. I am the only son
of the Honourable James D'Arcy-Muir."
"The Honourable?" queried Lenore with a fascinating uplifting of her
delicate eyebrows. "Ah yes, that is one of your English distinctions--so
grand and meaning so much! Our titles in France mean nothing!"
"I have been in France," said Boy.
"Have you? Did you like it?"
"I was only at school there when a boy," he replied. "The school was
near the sea-coast in Brittany."
"Ah, dear Brittany! So charming--so picturesque--so poetic!"
"Well, I can't say much about that," said Boy. "I was there just for a
year,--but I didn't care about it. The boys were rather a bad lot."
"It was perhaps a bad school," said the daughter of the Marquis, with a
little laugh. "Oh, you must not be too severe about my dear Brittany!
Here we are! Do come in!"
Boy helped her out of the cab, and as she sprang lightly to the ground
she looked up with tender entreaty in her eyes and repeated the words.
"Do come in!"
Boy hesitated,--then paid the cabman and dismissed him.
"Do you think your father--the Marquis----" he stammered uneasily.
"He will be charmed!" said the captivating Lenore. "Come--I will take no
denial. You must have supper with us--come!" And almost before he knew
how it happened, Boy found himself in the highly decorated hall of a
small flat, bowing to a stoutly built gentleman with a red face and a
superabundance of moustache, whom Lenore introduced as--
"My father, the Marquis de Gramont!"
And while Boy made his bashful salute, father and daughter exchanged a
profane wink which had their guileless guest observed, would certainly
have surprised him.
"Dear papa!" said Lenore then, in her pretty caressing voice, "how could
you leave me behind at the theatre in that cruel way? What were you
thinking about? This is Mr. Robert D'Arcy-Muir, the son of the
Honourable Mr. D'Arcy-Muir, who was good enough to get me a hansom and
bring me home,--and if he hadn't been so kind to me, where do you
suppose I should have been, you naughty papa!"
By this time the Marquis appeared to understand and grasp the position.
"My dear, I am very sorry!" he said in smooth deep accents--"very sorry!
I really thought you had gone home with our other friends! But you have
been most fortunate in finding such a handsome and gallant cavalier to
take care of you. You are very welcome, my boy," he said heartily,
laying a fat hand on the young man's shoulder. "Supper has just begun.
Come in, sans crmonie! Come and share our simple meal!"
He led the way,--Lenore threw off her opera cloak, thereby showing her
dazzling beauty to much greater advantage than before, and slipping her
bare rounded arm through Boy's with a little coaxing pressure, she took
him into a room of considerable size, where a light supper was laid out
with a good deal of elegance, and where several other men were sitting,
all rather red-faced, and with something of a free-and-easy air about
them. Boy was introduced to the party as "the son of the Honourable
James D'Arcy-Muir," whereat he wondered a little, as he could not see
what his parentage had to do with his present way of passing his
evening. But he presently decided that as his host was a Marquis, no
doubt all the gentlemen with him were of the bluest blood and highest
degree, and that therefore it was necessary to say who he was, in order
that he might be known as a fit companion for such distinguished
personages. Suppose they knew he was expelled from Sandhurst! The hot
blood surged to the very tips of his ears as this thought crossed his
mind, and he took his seat at table like one in a dream.
"Champagne, Mr. D'Arcy-Muir?" inquired the Marquis courteously, passing
the bottle.
"Thanks!" And Boy, filling his glass, raised it to his lips and bowed
low to the fair Lenore sitting next to him, who, smiling, bowed in
return. And after the little pause which generally follows the entry of
a stranger at a feast, conversation began again and soon became
argumentative and noisy. Politics and society were discussed, and
several of the gentlemen present appeared, for gentlemen, to have some
curious notions of honour.
"Oh, hang all that sort of rot," said one, a man with a clean-shaven
face, and a physiognomy apparently got up as a copy of Mr.
Pinero's--"Success is the only thing you need care about. Money, money,
money! People don't care a brass button whether you are honourable or
not. Tradesmen are more civil to the fellows who run up long bills than
to those who owe short ones. It's all a matter of hard cash. Principle
is an old card, long played out."
"Did you see that new girl in the piece at the Harem Theatre last
night?" said another. "Little idiot! She can't act. She ought to be a
charwoman."
"Perhaps she cannot do charing," suggested the Marquis, nodding at his
daughter, who at once replenished Boy's glass. "It is a mtier!--it
may require study!"
They all laughed.
"She's an idiot, I say," went on the former speaker--"She could make
thousands if she would just let the actor-manager do as he likes with
her----"
"Gentlemen," interrupted the Marquis with a fierce twirl of his
moustache, "I must beg you to remember that my daughter is present!"
Boy looked at him admiringly, and warmed to the fine spirit he
exhibited. He, Boy, was rapidly getting indignant at the unmannerly way
in which these eating and drinking men were eyeing the exquisite
Lenore,--one man had actually wafted her a kiss from the other side of
the table,--and she had pretended not to see. But of course she had
seen, and was no doubt hurt and disgusted. She must have been
disgusted,--any sweet girl like that would feel outraged at such vulgar
familiarity! Boy was growing more and more heated and excited as the
time went on; he had eaten scarcely anything, but he had taken all the
champagne given to him, and there was a buzzing in his head like the
swarming of a hive of bees. At a sign from the Marquis he got up
unsteadily, and accepting a cigarette went with all the party into a
side room, where Lenore drove him to still further desperation and
infatuation by taking his cigarette from him, putting it for a moment
between her own rosy lips, then lighting it and giving it back to him
with a mischievous curtsey and smile that were enough to confuse a much
wiser and clearer head than that of a young man only just turned twenty.
Dimly he became aware of a card-table being pushed towards him,--dimly
through the brain-fumes of smoke and champagne he heard his host, the
Marquis de Gramont, asking him to play a game with them.
"What is it?" he demanded thickly--"I am not clever at cards. Are you?"
This with a stupid laugh and sentimental look at Lenore.
"Oh no! I never play anything!" said the young lady, smiling sweetly. "I
only look on! But I think baccarat is a very amusing game. Do play!"
Whereupon he sat down with the rest of the men, and was soon, under the
guidance of the Marquis, in the full heat and excitement of play. He did
not know in the least what he was doing,--he obeyed every hint from the
Marquis, or from Lenore, who leaned over his shoulder caressingly and
whispered now and then--"I would play that if I were you"--or "I would
do that." Everything was in a whirl with him, and he only came to his
senses at last with a sharp shock when, at the conclusion of four or
five games, the Marquis asked courteously,--
"Would you care to go on any further, Mr. D'Arcy-Muir? Pray do not think
me officious for reminding you that you have lost five hundred pounds
already!"
Boy started from his chair.
"What? Five hundred pounds! Nonsense! I thought we were playing for
fun,--for sixpences,--for----"
"No, not exactly!" said the Marquis urbanely and with a slight smile.
"You have been rather unlucky so far,--but if you wish to go on, it is
possible you may win back what you have lost."
But Boy still stood amazed, with a wild look in his eyes.
"Lost! Five hundred pounds! My God!" Then rallying a little he looked
around him bewilderedly. "To whom do I owe this money?"
The other men laughed carelessly.
"Why, to the winners, old chappie," said one. "The Marquis"--with a
slight somewhat sarcastic emphasis on this title,--"will tell you all
about it. Don't worry!--he'll settle it all for you."
"I shall be most happy to be of any service to Mr. D'Arcy-Muir," said
the Marquis at once. "He has only to give me his note of hand that in
ten days he will repay me, and the five hundred pounds is ready for
him--even more, if he requires it."
"Repay--five hundred pounds!" And Boy still stared about him in horror
and fear. "But--I have not five hundred pence in all the world!"
The Marquis smiled again and stroked his moustache.
"No? That is certainly unfortunate! But your father, the Honourable Mr.
D'Arcy-Muir, will no doubt be answerable for you. This is a debt of
honour, of course--not a public matter--but involving serious private
disgrace if left unpaid. However, don't distress yourself, my dear boy!
I will accept your note of hand at fourteen days instead of ten."
Boy was silent--his face was deadly pale, his eyes bloodshot. Then he
suddenly walked up to his smiling host and looked him full in the face.
"I understand!" he said hoarsely. "I begin to realize what you
are!--and what kind of a trap I have fallen into! Very well! Let it be
as you say. Pay these men what I owe to them--what you have made me lose
to them, and I will give you my note of hand for the amount. And in
fourteen days you shall be paid back--somehow!"
"Good!" And the Marquis went at once to a writing-desk conveniently at
hand and scrawled a few lines hastily, which Boy as hastily glanced at
and signed with his name and address,--"Thank you!" And the
distinguished French nobleman shifted about a little, and avoided with
some uneasiness the steady glance of the young man's eyes. "Five
hundred!--and I will charge you no interest for the loan! Will you play
again?"
"Play again?" And Boy turned upon them all with such a tragedy of pain
written on his face as for a moment awed even the callous gamesters,
accustomed to ruin young men's lives with as little compunction as they
cracked their nuts after dinner. "No! Had I known better I would not
have played at all." With a sudden fierce movement he sprang towards the
bewitching Lenore and seized her hands, while with a slight cry she
tried to drag herself away from him. "You--you--betrayed me into this!
You brought me here!--you, with your beautiful face and beautiful
eyes--you whom I thought a good innocent girl! A good girl!" And he
broke into a loud harsh laugh, like the laugh of a madman. "God help me!
I thought you were good!"
He flung her hands from him with a gesture of loathing and contempt, and
then, with one look of miserable defiance at the practised villains who,
seated round the card-table, were smoking leisurely and smiling as
though they were listening to a very amusing farce, turned and left the
room.
His first thought when he stood in the open street again was
suicide,--his next, Miss Letty. He walked along swiftly, scarcely
heeding where he went, his head burning, his heart throbbing, his whole
being possessed by the exceeding wrong done to him by Fate in endowing
him with the mere fact of life. He was unconscious of making any
protest, yet a protest there was in his own soul which would not and
could not have found its way into words, because he did not himself
recognize the nature of it. God alone was able to read that protest and
understand it,--the terrible indictment brought against those who had
been given this young life to guard and train to noblest results,--an
indictment involuntarily and invisibly set before a crowd of witnesses
every day by young men and women who owe their mistakes and miseries to
the blind tyranny and selfishness of the parents who brought them into
existence. If Boy had made an end of his troubles then and there he
would not, strictly speaking, have murdered himself so much as his
parents would have murdered him. From the earliest beginnings of
childhood, all the seeds of his present misery had been sown,--by
neglect, by carelessness, by bad example, by uncomfortable home
surroundings, by domestic quarrellings,--by the want of all the grace,
repose, freedom, courtesy, kindliness and sympathy, which should give
every man's house the hall-mark of "Home." His childhood had been sad
and solitary--his boyhood embittered by disappointment, followed by the
excessive strain of "competitive cram," which had tired and tortured
every little cell in his brain to utter exhaustion,--he was old before
he had had time to be young. Miss Letty! The thought of her just now in
all his wretchedness brought a sudden mist of tears to his eyes. He had
forgotten her so long--so long! And when he had seen her last he had
scarcely been conscious of her, because so stupefied by the weight of
the things he had to remember for his "exam." She had seemed a dream to
him, and so had the Major. Now, when the mass of undigested learning
had all rolled off and been absolutely forgotten as though it had never
been studied, the remembrance of her love for him as a child came
freshly back like a breath from the sea, or the perfume of flowers. He
slackened his hurried pace, and grew calmer. The stars were shining
brightly above his head, though London was enswathed in a kind of low
fog, which crept dismally up from the ground to the top of the ugly
brick houses, and there hung like a veil--beyond this, the deep heavens
arched high and clear, and Venus shone steadfastly like a lamp to guide
lost travellers on their way.
"I will try Miss Letty," he said to himself. "I won't tell her just yet
how I have been caught in a gambler's snare--I will just simply ask her
if she will lend me a little money. Then if she says 'Yes' I will go to
her and explain. I don't think she will refuse."
He carried this plan into action the next day, and wrote to his old
friend as follows:--
"DEAR MISS LETTY,
I am afraid you will have thought me very careless in not writing
to you all these years, and very selfish now to write when I have
only a favour to ask of you, but I hope you will not mind, and try
still to keep as good an opinion of me as you can. I have got into
rather a difficulty, and am in urgent need of a little money. Can
you lend me some? I do not know when I shall be able to pay you
back, but I do not think you will be a very hard creditor to
Yours affectionately,
BOY."
He posted this in the morning about ten o'clock. At eight the same
evening he got his answer, enclosing a cheque for fifty pounds and the
following letter:--
"MY DEAR BOY,--
I am so very glad to hear from you again. Please accept the
enclosed as a little present. Change it at my bank, and if you like
to come and see me afterwards, and talk over your difficulties, I
shall be only too happy to help you. I am nearly always to be found
at home, as I am rather an invalid.
Your old friend,
LETITIA LESLIE."
The letter dropped from his hand and he looked at the cheque with a kind
of despair. Fifty pounds! In his extremity it was useless. How foolish
he had been not to ask Miss Letty for the whole sum at once! He took up
the letter and read it again--again and again he looked at the cheque.
"Had I better go and see her?" he meditated. "But if I do I shall have
to tell her all about the row at Sandhurst,--and this gambling
business--she will think me a regular villain. She must be quite an old
lady now--and I should worry her to death. She would be so disappointed
in me----"
He looked at the cheque again,--and then--like a black cloud crossing
the horizon, a Thought began to creep over his mind, darkening it
steadily into gloom. He sat quiet, fingering the cheque and Miss Letty's
letter together, his face growing paler and paler,--his eyes harder and
colder--his form rigid.
"People should always write the amount they are drawing in plain letters
on their cheques," he half-whispered with dry lips--"Miss Letty should
have written the word 'fifty,' not the figure '50.'"
He put away letter and cheque and went to bed early,--not to sleep but
to toss about restlessly all night long. What a horrible time he
passed!--what fretting dreams tortured him!--what strange and evil faces
haunted him, chief among which were those of the "Marquis" de Gramont
and his fascinating daughter Lenore--and the smooth cold handsome face
of the officer who had first tempted him to drink at Sandhurst. Of his
mother and father he never thought,--they had never shown him the
slightest sympathy. Once, during this wretched night of fleeting
visions, he saw the bent crooked figure and wrinkled countenance of the
old sailor Rattling Jack, whose last words had been "I'll just think o'
ye as if ye were dead." Death was better than disgrace--and yet--Miss
Letty was so good a woman--she had loved him so much--she would be sure
to forgive him--if----!
With the daylight he rose and sat at his writing-table, vaguely turning
over bits of paper and scribbling figures on them without any apparent
intention,--then after a hurried breakfast he went out. At about
half-past ten he made his way to Miss Letty's bank and drawing her
cheque out of his pocket, passed it across the counter. The cashier
glanced at it with a little uplifting of his eyebrows.
"All in notes, or would you like any gold?" he demanded.
Boy was staring fixedly in front of him and did not hear. The cashier
was busy, and spoke again impatiently and with a suspicious glance.
"Notes or gold? Will you have all notes or any gold?"
"Notes, please," answered Boy in a low voice.
The cashier turned over the cheque.
"You have forgotten to endorse it," he said, passing it back and handing
him a pen ready dipped in ink.
Boy took the pen--but his hand shook. Again the cashier looked at him
suspiciously. When he had endorsed the cheque the cashier vanished into
the manager's room and was absent some minutes. Then he came back and
said with great civility,--
"Will you kindly call back in an hour? There is a little formality to go
through with this before paying out so large an amount from Miss
Leslie's current account----"
"Is there?" stammered Boy, turning deathly white.
"Oh, only a mere matter of form," said the cashier, watching him
narrowly, "and our manager is rather busy just now. If you will call
back at twelve he will explain everything to you, and hand you over the
money."
Boy bent his head mechanically and went out, sick with terror.
Meanwhile, one of the bank's confidential clerks, acting on instructions
received, went out of the building by a side door, and jumping into a
hansom was driven straight to Miss Letty's house. Could he see Miss
Leslie? The servant who opened the door was not quite sure,--Miss Leslie
was not very well.
"Please say to her that the business is urgent, and that I come from the
bank," said the clerk.
Upon this, the servant showed him into the hall, where he waited for a
few minutes impatiently. Then he was shown into Miss Letty's
morning-room, where, near a sparkling fire, and surrounded by many
flowers, sat Miss Letty herself, a picture of fair and tranquil old age,
quietly knitting.
"Excuse me troubling you, madam," began the clerk, stumbling awkwardly
into the dainty little sanctum, and standing abashed in the presence of
this gracious, sweet old lady, who as he afterwards said when speaking
of her, looked like a queen.
"Pray do not mention it, sir," said Miss Letty with her old-fashioned
courtesy. "I am quite ready to attend to business at any time. Excuse my
not rising to receive you,--I am not very strong to-day."
The clerk hesitated.
"Our cashier was not quite certain about this cheque," he at last went
on. "As it is not usual for you to draw such a large sum at once out of
your current account, we thought it might be as well to make an inquiry
before paying it----"
He paused, alarmed at the white face Miss Letty turned upon him.
"What cheque are you speaking of?" she asked. "For a large sum? Pray let
me see it."
He took out his pocket-book and handed her the cheque, carefully folded
in two,--then awaited her response. With trembling fingers she opened it
and read--"Pay to Robert D'Arcy-Muir the sum of 500."
A dark mist swam before her eyes,--she turned faint and giddy--the room
whirled round her in a circle of firelight and flowers, with the
conventional figure of the bank clerk standing out angularly in the
centre,--then with a strong mental effort she recovered herself and
quietly re-folded the cheque.
"Yes!" she said faintly, then clearing her voice, she forced herself to
speak more distinctly and to smile. "Yes!--it is quite right!
Quite--correct!"
And she rose from her chair, her soft grey cashmeres falling about her,
and the old lace kerchief knotted on her bosom heaving a little with
her quickened breath. "It is quite correct," she went on. "The young
man--Mr. D'Arcy-Muir--presented it himself, no doubt?"
"Yes, madam," said the clerk humbly, "he did, but--we thought it best to
ask. Very sorry, I am sure, to have had any doubt! But you see the last
'nought' is not precisely in your usual way of finishing a
figure--and--er--the sum being large----"
"Yes, yes, I see," said Miss Letty, bravely smiling. "My writing is not
so good as it was,--I am getting old! Thank you for your trouble in
coming,--and thank the manager, please! Tell him it is quite correct!"
She gave him back the cheque, and he accepted it with a bow.
"Sorry to have troubled you, madam, I am sure!"
"Not at all!" said Miss Letty. "Not at all! Good morning!"
"Good morning, madam!"
He left her, and she stood like a creature turned into stone.
"Boy! Oh, Boy!" The name escaped her lips in a half-whisper.
She looked around her--her eyes were dim,--and she was still troubled by
a sickening giddiness. She moved to her chair, and laid one hand on the
arm of it to steady herself.
"You should have died when you were a child, poor Boy!" she said still
whisperingly--"Poor little Boy! You should have died when you were a
child!"
Still she stood rigid and tearless, unconscious of all around her, her
blue eyes fixed on vacancy. The door opened--she did not hear it. Violet
Morrison, very fair to see in the neat grey gown and spotless white cap
of her calling, entered--she did not notice her.
"Miss Letty!"
She started a little, turned her head, and strove to smile and speak,
but could not. Violet, alarmed, sprang to her side.
"Darling Miss Letty! What has happened?--What is the matter?"
A deep sigh broke from Miss Letty's lips. She trembled a little.
"Nothing, dear! Nothing! I was only just thinking--of Boy!"
"Were you?" And Violet's face grew more serious. Something was surely
wrong with Miss Letty!--she had not mentioned Boy for years. "What made
you think of him just now, dearest?" And she slipped her strong young
arm about the old lady's trembling figure.
"A little circumstance reminded me," replied Miss Letty dreamily, "of
the days when he was a child. Do you see up there, Violet?"--and she
pointed to a small shelf above the mantelpiece,--"Those quaint little
shoes? He used to wear them--and rub them out at the toes--you will
notice they are quite worn! And that toy there--that cow--it moves its
head--he used to call it 'Dunny,' and he loved it so much that he took
it everywhere about with him. Such a funny little fellow!--such a dear
innocent little man--such an innocent--sweet little man!"
The last words were almost inaudible--for as she spoke them her face
suddenly changed and grew ashen grey,--she reeled and would have fallen,
had not Violet caught her just in time, and laid her gently back in her
arm-chair in a dead faint. The house was soon in confusion,--one servant
flew for the doctor, another for Major Desmond, who arrived on the scene
just as his old friend was beginning to recover consciousness under the
careful tending of Violet, whose trained medical knowledge stood her in
good stead.
"What has upset her like this?" he asked, his kind face growing drawn
and haggard as he saw the death-like pallor of his beloved Letty's
features. "How did it happen?"
"I don't know," answered Violet in a low tone. "I found her standing by
her chair, and talking to herself about Boy!"
The doctor soon came, and after careful examination pronounced it to be
shock.
"A nervous shock," he said cheerfully. "She'll get all right presently,
won't you?" And he patted his patient's pretty old hand soothingly.
"You'll get all right presently?"
Miss Letty looked upon them all with her sweetly patient air and smiled.
"Oh yes! I shall soon be quite well. You must not worry about me."
"But what's the matter, Letty?" asked the Major tenderly, bending over
her chair. "What is troubling you?"
"Nothing, Dick! It was only a little faintness. I am almost well
now--almost well!--only weak--very weak----"
She closed her eyes and lay back again in her chair, while Violet still
bathed her forehead and chafed her hands. She was reviving gradually,
and after a few minutes the doctor took his leave. Out in the hall,
however, he beckoned mysteriously to Major Desmond.
"She may last a couple of years or so longer," he said, "but she will
require the greatest care,--it is the beginning of the end."
And with a hurried bow after these ominous words, he got into his
brougham and was driven away. Major Desmond stood where the doctor had
left him, stupefied.
"The beginning of the end!" Letty! He shuddered. Letty had got her
deathblow! She was going away to be an angel with Harry Raikes, and sit
on a golden throne----
"No! By G----! She shan't!" said the Major desperately. "If she goes
I'll go with her!"
Meanwhile, the confidential clerk from the bank, whose visit was the
unguessed cause of all this trouble, went back to his chief and reported
the result of his mission.
"Well, I'm glad it's all right," said the manager after hearing him out.
"I confess I had my suspicions, for Miss Leslie has never drawn five
hundred all at once from her current account before. I am sorry I
doubted the young man. Tell the cashier to attend to him at once when he
calls."
At the appointed hour, Boy came into the bank, walking slowly and
feebly, and looking very ill. The cashier greeted him smilingly, and
with effusive civility.
"Just ready, sir!" and he began counting out crisp bank notes rapidly.
Boy leaned on the counter looking at him.
"I thought you said there was some formality----" he began.
"Quite right, sir! Yes--so there was, but we hurried the matter by
sending the cheque to Miss Leslie and asking her if it was all
right----"
Boy took a deep sharp breath.
"And she----?" he began.
"She said it was quite correct. You see we were a little uncertain,--we
have to be very cautious in banking matters--sorry to have caused any
delay, I'm sure! Now let me see,--three hundred--two fifties--four
hundred--fifty--twenty-five--another twenty-five. Kindly look through
the notes before leaving the counter."
Boy did as he was told with shaking fingers.
Then he folded them all together and put them in his pocket, and looked
at the cashier very strangely indeed.
"Good morning!" he said.
"Good morning."
Boy walked to the heavy spring door and pulled it open--then passed
through and was gone, the cashier watching him till he had disappeared.
"Curious--very curious!" he soliloquized. "That young chap looked as if
he had got poison instead of bank notes. I wonder what's up?"
Often did that wonder affect the worthy cashier. The people who came and
went in the bank, with money, and without it, were strange enough in
their various expressions of countenance and mannerisms to provide many
a student with subject-matter for thought,--still, it was not often that
so young a lad as Boy was seen there with such a whole history of
despair and shame written on his face. And that despair and shame had
not lightened with his possession of the much-needed and sorely coveted
money,--it had, on the contrary, deepened and become far heavier to
bear. But he had now made up his mind as to his immediate course of
action. He had resolved upon it in the very moment that the cashier had
handed him the bank notes, and he was only anxious to go through with
his intention while it was fresh and newly formed in his mind, lest
anything should make him hesitate or falter. He went back straight to
his lodgings and there putting all the bank notes into one large
envelope wrote the following letter:--
"DEAR GENEROUS MISS LETTY!
I don't know what to say to you for your kindness and your mercy to
me, which is so much more than I deserve!--but I know what I ought
to do and I am doing it as well as I can. I send you back here all
the money I tried to get by the wicked fraud of adding another
figure to the one in your cheque--and I hope you will try and
forgive me for my attempted and intended theft. I don't understand
how it is you can be so good to me as to shield me in this way, but
your great mercy has made me bitterly ashamed of myself, and I do
beg your pardon with all my heart. I will try to make amends
somehow, so that you shall not hear any bad of me again. God bless
you always, dear Miss Letty, for your unexpected and most heavenly
kindness to your wretched
BOY.
I have brought this letter myself, but I won't come in, as I could
not bear to see your kind face just now."
He put this epistle in with the bank notes and sealed the
envelope,--then anxious to be rid of the now hateful money and put
temptation away from him as far as possible, he took a hansom and drove
to Hans Place. The servant who opened the door looked pale and flurried,
and her eyes were red as if she had been crying.
"Give this to Miss Leslie, please," he said, holding out the packet.
"Miss Leslie is very ill, sir,' said the girl. "I do not think she will
be able to read any letters to-day."
Boy's heart almost stood still.
"Very ill? Since when?
"Since this morning, sir. She was taken quite sudden-like."
Boy uttered a little cry. His fault! His fault! If his old friend died,
it would be his fault!
"Give her that," he repeated sternly between his set teeth. "If she is
not able to receive it, give it to Major Desmond. He will understand.
And--when Miss Letty gets better, if she can hear a message, will you
say that Boy left his love?"
The servant stared at the pale eager young face and the pained sorrowful
eyes.
"'Boy left his love,'" repeated the girl,--"Oh well, sir, wouldn't you
like to come in a minute, sir?"
"No!" said Boy almost fiercely. "I'm not fit to come in! I am a thief
and a scoundrel! But all the same--say to her that Boy left his love!"
He rushed away leaving the servant panic-stricken, gazing after him with
the sealed packet for Miss Letty in her hands.
Hurrying back again to his lodgings with grief and fury raging in his
soul, Boy sat down for a moment to think. The force of his trouble and
the mental victory he had gained over himself in the restoration of Miss
Letty's money had cleared his brain, and he was able to consider his
position more calmly than he had considered it before. A sense of
freedom came over him,--he had shaken himself out of a net of crime
before it was too late--and it was the beautiful, merciful, angelic
spirit of his childhood's friend, Miss Letty, that had saved him! When
she had the power to ruin him she had rescued him,--and for this, he
resolved to prove himself worthy of her clemency! After a little
meditation, he wrote a long letter of explanation to Major Desmond,
telling him the whole history of his adventure at the theatre and his
visit to the house of the "Marquis" de Gramont, begging him to say the
best he could for him to Miss Letty.
"Tell her," he wrote, "that the horror she has saved me from, shall
bring out whatever good stuff there is in me, if any. Please do not
come to see me, for I could not bear it. And do not send me any
money, because I could not bear that either. If you will just let
me have a wire saying how dear Miss Letty is some time to-morrow,
that is all I ask of you. And after that, both of you forget me
till you hear of me again.
Yours,
'BOY'
(R. D'ARCY-MUIR)."
This done he wrote a note to the "Marquis" de Gramont, who had carefully
reminded him of his address that very morning. The note was as
follows:--
"SIR,
I have placed my affair with you in the hands of my old friend
Major Desmond, who will inquire into the exact justice of my debts
of honour.
Yours faithfully,
R. D'ARCY-MUIR."
Full of nervous hurry and excitement he posted these letters, and could
hardly sleep all night for wondering what the answers would be. The next
day brought him first of all a wire--"Keep up your courage. Miss Letty
much better.--DESMOND."
Later on came a letter:--
"DEAR BOY,
Yours is a sad and very common story, and this isn't the time for
reproaches. Miss Letty, who is an angel, never told me what had
happened,--and I shall not mention to her, unless it is necessary,
how you were trapped into de Gramont's little den. Don't trouble
yourself about this 'Marquis'; he is no more a marquis than I am,
and he is particularly wanted to attend a little party given by the
police. You will hear no more of your 'honourable' debts in that
quarter. I wish you would be reasonable and let me come and see
you. A little talk would do us both good, and I might be able to
help you out of present difficulties. Keep on the square, and
everything will come right.
Yours heartily,
DESMOND."
Boy gave a great sigh of relief. Miss Letty was better--thank God! The
money was restored,--and the spectre of the "Marquis" de Gramont was
dwindling and dissolving gradually into thin air like a black dream
following on a bad digestion. And now--what should he do? One step
more--and all was plain sailing. He made that step by writing to his
employer and setting himself free of his daily business as a clerk.
Then, without pausing to think any more about it, he walked rapidly down
to a certain office in a certain quarter, where there were certain showy
bills put up outside, the chief lettering on which seemed to be "Her
Majesty" in very large capitals. There stepping in, he addressed himself
at once to a neat and well-set-up man, in smart uniform, who was at
that moment taking his "rest" in rather a novel way by standing very
bolt upright against a wall and smoking.
"Are you the recruiting sergeant?" said Boy.
"I am, young feller! What can I do for you?"
"Oh, nothing in particular," said Boy shyly, with a sudden smile which
made his face very captivating. "I want to enlist, that's all!"
The sergeant looked him up and down.
"H'm! You're a gentleman, aren't you?"
"Well, I'm not so sure of that," said Boy with a forced laugh. "I'll try
to be one when I'm a soldier!"
Upon which the sergeant gave him such a heavy blow of approval on his
shoulder that he almost fell down under it.
"I like that!" he said. "That'll do for me! Sound in wind and limb,
aren't you?"
"I think so!" And Boy, warmed and encouraged at heart by the kindly
twinkle of the sergeant's keen eyes, began to feel almost happy.
"Right you are! Come along then. Here's your shilling," and he pressed
that silver coin, which Boy at the moment desired more than a nugget of
gold, into the young man's hand--"Done! Come along--name, age, and all
the etceteras--and then a drink--and God save the Queen!"
"Amen!" said Boy as he followed his new commander.
CHAPTER XII
Two years had fully elapsed since the incidents narrated in the last
chapter, and Miss Letty, in spite of the doctor's ominous predictions,
was still alive, and, as she expressed it, "in fairly good health for a
woman of her age." Major Desmond, however, was a prey to constant
alarms, and in spite of the gout and rheumatism which nowadays afflicted
him, used to visit her constantly, being always more or less in terror
lest she should be snatched away suddenly from him and no time for a
last "Good-bye." And Miss Letty, with her always swift perception, saw
his anxiety, and considered him very tenderly,--for he, though he did
not seem to recognize it, was also suffering from the inevitable aches
and pains of age, yet he held himself as bravely as ever. He wasn't
going to stoop and crawl about with a stick,--no, not he! And he bravely
demonstrated his force of will by walking from his club in Piccadilly to
Hans Place whenever his gouty foot was causing him the most acute
suffering. Other men in his plight would have taken a cab, or at least
availed themselves of a crutch--but he did neither. And there was so
much practical good sense in the resistance he offered to the attempted
siege of illness, that he cured himself of threatened attack many a time
and saved the doctor's bill.
Both he and Miss Letty had lost sight of Boy. Since the morning on which
he had restored the bank notes, and had, as he said, "left his love," he
had disappeared mysteriously and unaccountably. The Major had inquired
in vain for him at his old lodgings, and finally, in desperation, had
essayed the disagreeable task of interviewing his parents on the subject
of his whereabouts. But he could get no news from them. The "Honourable"
Jim, bolstered up in his chair, with drawn countenance and hollow eyes,
was scarcely recognizable, save when his son's name was mentioned, and
then he straightway woke up from his semi-lethargy to swear. The Major
was therefore reduced to the necessity of endeavouring to get what
information he could out of Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, who, breathing hard and
heavily like a porpoise, wept profusely at his first question, and
allowed her tears to trickle down and mix with the various food stains
on the dirty front of the ample dressing-gown in which she now enveloped
her elephantine proportions.
"Oh, don't talk to me about Boy!" she said. "Think of my sufferings as a
mother! The disappointment I have had to endure is too terrible for
words! The sacrifices I have made for him! The trouble I have had!"
"What trouble?" demanded the Major sharply. "You have done about as
little for him as any one could, I fancy!"
Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir stopped producing her tears,--and stared at him with
the air of an injured Roman matron.
"Little!" she echoed. "I have done everything for him--everything!
Through my efforts, when his father grudged me any money for his
education, he went to school in France----"
"And he'd better have stayed at home," interpolated the Major.
"Then I never rested day or night till I could get him to college; and
then--and then----"
"Then he was 'crammed,' and forgot that he was anything but a machine to
take in facts and grind them to powder,--and then he went to Sandhurst,
and then he got expelled for being drunk, having seen his father drunk
before him all his life. Yes, ma'am, we know all that! But what I'm
asking you now is--what's become of him?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir, beginning to be
snappish. "I have not seen or heard anything of him for ages. He has
deserted his mother! He is ungrateful--unnatural--and cruel! Sometimes I
think he cannot be my son. I'm sure"--here she put her handkerchief to
her eyes--"the stories one hears of changelings might really be
true,--for Boy was never the same to me after he stayed with Miss
Letty."
As she spoke she almost screamed, for the Major, with one big stride,
came close up to her and glared down upon her like a figure of fury.
"Why--why, you miserable woman!" he suddenly burst out. "You ought to be
ashamed of yourself! You dare to hint anything against one of the finest
creatures God ever made, and the best friend your son ever had--and
I'll--I'll shake you! I will! If that wretched object
inside--Jim--whom I used to know when he was younger, had shaken you
long ago it would have done you and him a world of good! You don't know
any news of Boy, don't you? Well, I do. I know this much, that if Miss
Letty had been a woman like you, that unfortunate young fellow you have
brought into the world would be serving his time in prison for---- Well,
never mind for what! But with all his faults and follies he is better
than his mother. If I had my way, his mother should hear a thing or two!
Yes, ma'am, you may stare at me as much as ever you like--I've often
wanted to speak my mind to you, and now I've done it. You were never fit
to have a son. You never knew what to do with him when you got him. Your
carelessness, your selfishness, your slovenliness, your downright d----
d idleness, are at the bottom of a good deal of the mischief he's
tumbled into. There, ma'am! I've said what I think, and I feel better
for it. Good morning!"
And before Mrs. D'Arcy-Muir could say another word he abruptly left her,
and she heard the street door shut after him with a loud bang. Her
husband yelled to her from the adjoining room.
"What's that?"
She went to him, her heavy tread shaking the flooring as she moved.
"It's that horrible old Major Desmond just gone," she said viciously.
"He's been most insulting! He actually says I am to blame for Boy's
turning out so badly!"
The Honourable Jim began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh, and the
nature of his illness did not conduce to agreeable facial expression.
But what latent sense of humour remained in him was decidedly awakened
by his wife's indignation.
"You're to blame, eh! He said that? Well, he's right--so you are! So you
are!"
"Jim!"
And over her fat cheeks her little eyes peered at him with a look of
amazement and wrath.
"I mean it," he persisted thickly, trying to twist his poor paralysed
tongue to distinct utterance. "You haven't been fair to me or Boy," and
he began to whimper feebly. "The house has always been at sixes and
sevens--never knew when one was going to have one's bit or drop--no one
in their senses would ever have called it a home--and you never tried
to do me any good. If you had I might not be lying here now. Desmond's
right enough--old Dick Desmond was always a good sort of thoroughgoing
chap. He knows what's what. He's right--it is your fault. God knows it
is!"
His head fell back wearily on his pillow, and his lack-lustre eyes
rolled restlessly in his head as if in search for something
unattainable. There was something really pitiable in the wretched man's
helplessness,--and in the neglected state of his room, where medicine
bottles, cups and glasses were littered about in confusion, and where
everything showed carelessness and utter disregard of the commonest
cleanliness and comfort. But no touch of compunction moved his wife to
any consciousness of regret or compassion. On the contrary, she assumed
an almost sublime air of majestic tolerance and injured innocence.
"Oh, of course!" she said resignedly, "of course it's my fault! I ought
to have known you would say that. It's the way of a man. He always
blames the woman who has been good to him--who has waited upon him hand
and foot--who has worked for him night and day--who has----" here she
began to grow hysterical--"who has loved him--who has been the mother of
his son--who has sacrificed herself entirely to her home! Yes--it is
always the way! Nothing but ingratitude! But you are ill, and I will not
blame you--Oh no, Jim--I'll not blame you, poor man!--you will be
sorry--sorry for being so cruel to your good wife who has been so kind
to you!"
With a sort of fat chuckling sob the estimable woman retired--not to
weep, oh no! but merely to eat some eggs and macaroni, a dish to which
she was particularly partial, and which had consoled her often before
for the wrongs inflicted on her as the chief martyr of her sex.
And the Major returned to Miss Letty with the account of his embassy,
whereat the gentle soul laughed a little, though there was a sadness in
her laughter. All her old affection for Boy as a child had come back in
full force for Boy as a young man, now that she knew all the story of
his griefs and temptations. For after the affair of the bank notes, the
Major had judged it best to tell her of the lad's expulsion from
Sandhurst, and when she knew everything, her pity and tenderness for him
knew no bounds. Her whole heart went out to him--and she had but one
wish--to see him again and lay her hands in a farewell blessing on his
head. "Just once before I die," she thought, for she knew in her own
soul that death could not be far off--"just to kiss him and say I
understand how he was tempted, poor fellow!--and how heartily I forgive
him and pray for him."
The Major knew of this secret longing of hers, though she seldom spoke
of it, and it was in his great desire to gratify her that he sought
everywhere for some clue to Boy's whereabouts, but in vain. A police
raid on the "Marquis" de Gramont's gambling den had effectually cleared
that rats' nest out of London, so there were no difficulties left there
by means of which Boy might have been traceable. Anxious and disturbed
in mind, the good Major rambled up and down the Strand and all the
bye-streets appertaining thereto, under the vague impression that he
should perhaps find Boy reduced to selling matches or bootlaces at a
corner, or coming out of a cheap eating-house,--"for," said the Major
feelingly, "he will have to get a dinner somehow or somewhere. One of
the chief disadvantages of life on this earth is that none of us can do
without feeding. If a world were invented where the creatures in it
could exist simply by breathing in the air and drinking in the light, it
would be perfection--there would be no cause for quarrelling, strife, or
envyings of one another, though I expect some of the fashionable ladies
would even then keep things pretty lively by quarrelling over their
lovers and their gowns."
Violet Morrison was away from London just at this time. Her course of
study in surgical nursing, followed with the most intense and
painstaking care, had made her an invaluable assistant to two or three
of the greatest surgeons in London--and "Nurse Morrison," as she was
called, was always in demand. She was no fancy follower of her
profession. She had not taken it up for the express purpose of flirting
with the doctors, and inveigling one of them into marrying her. She had,
however, grown into a very beautiful woman, and many a clever and
brilliant 'rising man' cast longing eyes of admiration at her fair face
and graceful form, as she moved with noiseless step and soft pitying
eyes through a hospital ward, soothing pain by her touch and inspiring
courage by her smile. But she set herself steadfastly against every hint
of love or marriage, and never swerved for an hour or a moment from the
lines of work and duty she had elected to walk in. Her only personal
anxiety was for Miss Letty, and willingly would she have stayed with her
beloved old friend, had not Miss Letty herself refused to be "coddled,"
as she expressed it.
"If you don't go and do your work, child, I shall fancy I am in
immediate danger," she said with a smile, "and I shall die right off
before you have time to look round! Go where your duty calls you,--I
shall be ever so much better and happier for knowing that you are where
you ought to be."
"I ought to be with you, I think," said Violet tenderly. "My first duty
is to you."
Miss Letty patted her hand kindly,
"Your first duty is to help those who are in instant need, my dear," she
said. "Be quite happy about me,--I am really feeling much better and
stronger, and I don't think I shall go away from you just yet--not quite
just yet. I think I shall live"--and her eyes softened tenderly--"to see
Boy again."
So Violet went, though not till after consultation with her uncle, who
swore vociferously that if she remained to "nurse" Miss Letty, it would
be all up with her at once.
"She'll get it into her head that she can't be left alone,--that she's
just on the point of dropping down dead--and I don't know what else in
the way of sickly rubbish," he said warmly. "Look here, child! I've got
the gout--and your wiseacres of doctors tell me that it may fly to my
heart and do for me in a minute. Well--all I say is, let it! It can't do
any more when it's done! But because I have to be dismissed out of the
world one way or the other, I'm not going to crawl round on sticks, with
a nurse bobbing about after me by way of a walking advertisement to
announce--'All's up with this chap! Look at him and bid him good-bye!'
Not a bit of it!"
Violet laughed.
"You dear uncle! You are always so plucky!"
"Plucky! There's no pluck about it,--we've all got to die--and when the
time comes, let us for heaven's sake go decently and in order, without
making a fuss about it. The animals show us a good example--they go into
holes and corners to die, in order not to distress their living friends.
That's what we ought to do, if we were not so deuced conceited as to
think ourselves the most valuable objects in all creation. Yet, as a
matter of fact, there are a good many horses and dogs who are superior
to most men. No, Violet!--Don't you bother about Miss Letty. I'll
take care of her. She'll live all the longer for not being fussed over.
You talk of pluck! She's twenty times more plucky than I am--and
we'll--we'll both make a stand against the final enemy--together!"
There was a pathetic note in the Major's voice as he uttered the last
few words, and Violet felt her eyes grow suddenly moist. But in her deep
respect for the fine old man's personal courage as well as for his
fidelity to a lifelong passion, she forbore to utter one word of the
sympathy which she knew would be unwelcome.
And time went on, till all at once England was thrilled and aroused by
the declaration of war with the Transvaal,--a trumpet note which,
re-echoing through the whole Empire, called into action the dormant
martial spirit of all the men who love their country and their Queen.
Excitement followed upon excitement,--hurried preparations for
battle--embarkations of troops--rumours, now of victory, now of
defeat,--and all the world was astir with eagerness to see how
lion-hearted England would respond to the sudden and difficult demand
made upon the strength of her military power. Regiment after regiment
was despatched to the front,--ship after ship bore away sons, brothers,
husbands and fathers from their homes and families, some to come back
again loaded with honour and victory,--some never to return. The Major
woke up like an old war-horse who hears the "rveille" sounded in the
darkness of his stable,--and almost forgot his gout in the eagerness
with which he tramped to and fro from the War Office to gather up the
latest news of friends and old comrades in arms who had thrown up
everything to go to the front and be again in active service.
"I never regretted my lost youth till now," he said enviously to his old
friend Captain Fitzgerald Crosby, who on account of a certain skill in
the management of some special form of gun, was going out to the
Cape--"Why, God bless me, Fitz, you're only fifteen years younger than I
am!"
"That's true," said Fitz,--"still fifteen years count, old boy! I wish
with all my heart you were going with me,--but perhaps you would not
care about leaving Miss Letty."
"No--you're right--I shouldn't," said the Major promptly. "I'm not
jealous of you--don't you think it! I wish you luck and a late chance of
promotion!"
And when Fitz had gone, in company with many others whom the Major knew,
another parting took place which caused the old man a very decided
twinge of pain, and almost moved him to urge his own personal claims
against those of duty. One of the famous surgeons for whom Violet had
worked so well, was leaving for hospital work at the front, and made it
a particular request that "Nurse Morrison" should also go on the same
steamer.
"We don't want any amateur 'fancy' nurses out there," he said,
explaining the position to the Major, who heard him with a mingling of
pride and pain,--pride that his niece's skill was so highly valued--pain
at the idea of her leaving him,--"We want brave capable women, who will
be examples to the others, and who really mean to work. There is no one
I know who will be so valuable to me in my operations on the wounded as
Nurse Morrison. I have talked to her about it, and she is quite willing
to go if you give her leave."
The matter had to be decided in a hurry, and so the Major, with a
somewhat dismal face, confided it all to Miss Letty, who at once pleaded
eloquently that Violet might be permitted to undertake the high duties
offered to her.
"Let her go, Dick, by all means," she said. "It's a splendid chance for
her--I know she will win the highest honours. She is perfectly fearless,
and she may help to save many a valuable life."
"But you, Letty," said Desmond. "Who's going to look after you?"
Miss Letty smiled.
"I'm all right, Dick! I have my maid,--and if I get any worse than I am,
I will ask my old Margaret to come over from Scotland and nurse me. We
mustn't be selfish in our old age, Dick! We must let Violet go. Her
services will be invaluable, and if we miss her, as of course we shall,
during her absence, we shall at any rate feel we are doing our little
best towards helping our brave soldiers by giving our dear girl to
their cause."
And so Violet sailed for the seat of war, bidding her uncle and Miss
Letty good-bye with many tears, forebodings and private griefs,--but
moved to heroic resolution to do her best where her work was so
strenuously demanded. The moment she arrived at the Cape, she and the
eminent surgeon who had secured her services were sent on to join the
forces moving towards Colenso, and she soon had her mind as well as her
hands full with the instructions she received as to the interior
arrangements of hospital field tents, and the preparations for what has
been rightly termed the "merciful cruelty" of the operating tables.
On the eve of the now famous battle of Colenso she stood at the entrance
of one of these tents, pale but resolute, gazing out into space, her
heart strangely heavy, her eyes burning with the heat of the dry, dusty
air, and her whole mind oppressed with premonitory forebodings. Danger
and death seemed very near,--and though cheerfulness was one of her
qualities as a nurse, she found it difficult on this particular night to
shake off the gloom and dread, which, like a black storm-cloud, steadily
darkened down over her soul. She tried to think of all the things
connected with her work--of the field hospital train, which she had
walked through from end to end at the request of her commanding surgeon,
examining everything, and admiring the forethought and care with which
so many comforts had been provided for the coming wounded. The coming
wounded! A faint shudder ran through her frame,--how un-Christian, how
terrible it seemed, that shot and shell should be used to tear poor
human beings to pieces for a quarrel over a bit of land, so much gold,
or a difference as to the gain or loss of either!
"If the politicians who work up wars could only realize the true horror
of bloodshed they would surely be more careful!" she thought. "It is
terrible to be waiting here for the bodies of the poor fellows, mangled
and bleeding, who have to suffer the most frightful agonies just at the
command of Governments sitting safe in their easy chairs!"
"Thinking of home, Nurse Morrison?" said a cheery voice; and she looked
up to see the famous surgeon she served addressing her. "Or of the
coming Christmas?"
"Neither, sir. I was thinking of the cruelty of war."
"It is a relic of barbarism," said the great man, the while he peered
into the hospital tent and saw that things were as he would have them.
"Indeed, it is almost the only vestige left to us of the dark ages. The
proper way for civilized nations to behave in a difficulty is to submit
to peaceable arbitration. War--especially nowadays--is a mere
slaughter-house--and the soldiers are the poor sheep led to the
shambles. The real nature of the thing is covered up under flying flags
and the shout of patriotism, but, as a matter of stern fact, it is a
horrible piece of cowardice for one nation to try murdering another just
to see which one gets its way first."
"I am glad you think as I do," said Violet, her eyes shining. "It is
surely better to serve Queen and Country by the peaceful arts and
sciences, than by killing men wholesale!"
The surgeon looked at her quizzically.
"Yes, nurse, but you must remember that the arts and sciences are very
seldom rewarded--whereas if you kill a few of your human brethren you
get notice and promotion! Don't let us talk about it. We must do as we
are told. And when the poor chaps are shot at and battered about, we
must try to mend them up as well as we can. You've got everything very
nice in there--very nice! Now oblige me, nurse, by trying to rest,--for
from what I hear you will be actively wanted to-morrow."
He nodded and went his way. Accustomed to obedience, Violet lay down on
her little tent-bed, and before she closed her eyes in sleep prayed
fervently for her uncle and her "darling Miss Letty."
"I wonder how she is?" she thought, "and I wonder if she has yet heard
anything of Boy?"
The morning broke clear and calm over the distant heights called
Drakensberg, and an intense heat poured down from the cloudless sky,
making the very ground scorching to the tread. There was not a breath
of air, and the scarcity of water made it impossible to cool the tents
by ordinary means. Violet awoke to the thunderous crash of the British
naval guns opening fire on Fort Wylie. As dawn deepened into day, the
bombardment grew faster and more furious, but no response came from the
hidden enemy. For some time, storms of shell and shrapnel poured on in
their destructive course without any apparent result, till all at once
one shot crashed fiercely from the hills behind Colenso. This was
followed by an appalling roar of guns and a deluge of fire from the Boer
line of defence, and the fray began in deadly earnest. Sick and
terrified at first by the hideous din, Violet instinctively put her
hands to her ears, and sat, with one or two of the other nurses, well
within the first field hospital tent, waiting for she knew not what.
Once the great surgeon looked in, pale with excitement.
"Be ready, all of you!" he said briefly. "This is deadly work!" And he
was gone.
"Are you not afraid?" asked one of her companions, whispering to Violet.
"Afraid?" she answered. "Oh no, not afraid,--only sorry! Sorry with my
whole heart and soul for what these poor soldiers will have to suffer! I
am thinking of them all the while--not of myself."
The hammering of the guns continued, and far away, from the heights,
invisible cannon thundered and boomed. As the day advanced the combat
grew more closely contested, and wounded men were beginning to be
rapidly carried to the "donga," or shelter, at the rear of the British
forces. Disaster followed disaster; and presently a word was whispered
that turned the hearts of the waiting women in the tents cold--"defeat."
Defeat! For the British? Surely there was no such possibility! Defeat!
While they were whispering together in low awestruck voices, the great
surgeon suddenly entered with some of his assistants, his sleeves rolled
up, his whole manner emphatically declaring work--and work too of the
promptest and smartest character. Violet moved at once to his side.
"Do as I tell you," he said, "and--you must not shrink! You will see
some horrible sights. Are you prepared?"
"Quite!" she replied tranquilly. He gave one glance at her calm face and
steadfast eyes--nodded approvingly, and went on with his preparations. A
young lieutenant suddenly rushed in.
"They've shot the Colonel!" he exclaimed wildly. "He wouldn't leave the
guns! They wanted him to, but he said 'Abandon be damned! We never
abandon guns!'" And away he rushed again.
On went the crash of the Maxims behind the Boer trenches,--the earth was
torn up in every direction by the bursting of lyddite shells--dead and
wounded were brought in by their comrades, or carried on ambulances by
the Army Medical Corps. The nurses were soon more than busy,--Violet
Morrison did her best to soothe the frantic ravings of many of the men
who, growing delirious with pain, fancied themselves still fighting on
the field, and filled the air with their shoutings. "Look to the guns!
Splendid! Splendid work! Don't leave the guns!" And the hospital tent
she controlled, so quiet and orderly some hours previously, was now
transformed into a scene of breathless horror and interest.
The hot suffocating day went on, till, as the afternoon lengthened
towards evening, there came the appalling news that the young and
gallant Lieutenant Roberts, the only son of one of the most heroic of
English generals, had been killed in a brave attempt to rescue the guns.
This awful fatality seemed to create something of a panic among the
bravest,--some of the steadiest heads lost account of what they were
doing for the moment, and by a fatal forgetfulness on the part of the
Staff, orders were never given to the Devons and Scots Fusiliers to
leave the "donga" where they, with many wounded, were sheltered.
Faithful to their duty, these unfortunate and valiant men remained where
they were, waiting till they were told to move,--with the dire result
that as the evening closed in the enemy crossed the river and
treacherously surrounded them under cover of the white flag. Cruel
slaughter followed,--but in the very midst of the fire and the falling
men, a young officer on horseback suddenly dashed out from behind a
hillock, galloping with all his might and bearing a wounded comrade
across his saddle. A rain of shots greeted his appearance, but he seemed
to bear a charmed life, for he raced on and on through the hail of
bullets and never stopped till he reached the first field hospital tent,
where his horse suddenly reeled and fell dead, bringing himself and his
wounded burden to the ground.
Some of the medical staff were round him in an instant, and as soon as
he could get breath he spoke.
"I'm not hurt," he explained, "but this chap is. I found him
wounded--and a rascal Boer making a barricade of his body to hide
himself behind while he fired at our men. I shot the Boer, and took away
this fellow--he's a young private--I'm afraid he's done for. I should
like to know who he is, for he gave a sort of cry when I took hold of
him, and called me 'Alister,' and swooned right off. Alister's my
name--so he must know me."
He shook himself like a young lion, free of dust, and wiped away the
blood that was trickling from a small scar in his cheek. His wish that
the comrade he had rescued should be attended to at once was gratified
as quickly as possible, and as the surgeon bared the terrible wounds of
the insensible mangled human creature before him he shook his head.
"No hope!" he said,--"it's no use operating here! It would only prolong
the poor fellow's agony. He's coming to, though. Do you think he knows
you?"
"Well, my name's McDonald," said the young officer,--"Alister McDonald.
My father's in the Gordon Highlanders. And this chap called me Alister.
Let me have a look at him." He came up to the side of the wounded
soldier, who was gradually returning to consciousness with heavy
shuddering breaths of pain,--and looked long and earnestly in his face.
Then he gave a sharp exclamation.
"By Jove! It's Boy!"
Violet Morrison heard the cry, and turned swiftly.
"Boy!" she exclaimed, and came forward, her lips apart, her whole frame
trembling. Alister McDonald looked at her in surprise and admiration.
"Do you know him?" he said. "I've never seen him since he was a little
chap, but I remember his face quite well. I don't know how he comes to
be a private, though. I think it must be the same fellow. His name is
Robert D'Arcy-Muir----"
But Violet, bending down over the poor shattered frame of the dying man,
quickly recognized, through the trickling blood and clammy dews of fever
heat, the delicate refined features and clustering fair locks which had
once been the fond admiration of one of the sweetest women in the world,
and, despite all her efforts at self-control, a low sob escaped her.
"Oh my darling Miss Letty!" she whispered--"Oh Boy!"
Young Alister McDonald heard her.
"Miss Letty!" he echoed with quick interest--"Oh, then it must be Boy.
He stayed with her up in Scotland at a house just opposite my
father's----"
The surgeon raised a warning finger,--and he was silent. Boy opened his
eyes, dimly blue, and slowly glazing over with a dark film, and looked
up in the face of "Nurse Morrison."
"Have we won?" he asked faintly.
The surgeon laid his firm kind hand upon the fitfully beating pulse.
"Don't fret! We shall win!" he said.
Boy gazed blankly up from his straight pallet bed.
"Shall we?--I don't know--it's all defeat--defeat!--and they've got the
guns!--by treachery. Where's Alister?"
"Here!" said the young lieutenant, advancing. "Cheer up, old chap!"
"I knew it must be you!" said Boy, trying to stretch out his hand. "When
you shot that Boer coward--and took me up on your horse--I
knew!--Alister all over!--You were always like that--about fighting the
enemies of England--do you remember?"
"Yes, I remember"--and Alister affectionately touched that feebly
groping hand--"Don't you worry! It's all right!"
"Ah, you've done something brave--already!" murmured Boy. "You always
said you would--you wanted to be a hero, and you've--you've begun! I
wanted to do something great too--for Miss Letty's sake...."
His voice sank. Moved by a passionate wish to rouse him once more,
Violet Morrison suddenly put her arms round him as he lay, and said
clearly--
"Boy!"
He stared at her, and a little smile crept round his mouth.
"Boy!" she went on sobbingly--"Can you hear me--can you understand?"
He made a faint sign of assent.
"I know Miss Letty," she went on in her sweet thrilling tones--"and you
have seen me, and I have seen you, only you don't remember me just now.
Poor Boy! I know Miss Letty--and I know how she loves you and wants to
see you again!"
The smile grew sweeter on the poor parched lips.
"Does she?" His voice seemed to come from a long way off, so faint and
feeble it had grown. "Ah! But I must do something great--and she will
forgive me----"
"She has forgiven you!" said Violet.--"Oh Boy!--dear Boy!--try to
understand!"
A grey shadow fell warningly on his features, but he still kept his eyes
fixed on Violet.
"Does--she--know?"
"She knows--she knows!" answered Violet, unable now to restrain her fast
falling tears. "She knows how hard everything was for you--yes, dear
Boy, she knows!--and she loves you just as dearly now, as when you were
a little child!"
A grave peace began to compose and soften his face, as though it were
touched by some invisible sweet angel's hand.
"Tell her--that I enlisted--to get a chance--of making amends--doing
something good--brave--to make her proud of me,--but it's too late
now--too late...."
A terrible convulsion seized him, and the sharp agony of it caused him
to spring half upright. The surgeon caught him and held him fast--he
stared straight before him, his eyes shining out with an almost
supernatural brightness--then all the light in them suddenly faded--the
lids drooped--and he sank back heavily. Violet put her arms round him
once more, and drew the fallen head, disfigured and bleeding, to her
bosom, weeping and murmuring still--
"Boy! Oh Boy!"
"It's all right!" he said dreamily--"All forgiven--all right! Don't cry.
Tell Miss Letty not to cry. Tell her--Boy--Boy left his love!"
An awed silence followed--and then--young Alister McDonald, with a
tenderness which, though he knew it not, was destined to deepen into a
husband's lifelong devotion later on, drew the weeping Violet gently
aside that she might give her tears full vent,--while the surgeon
reverently drew a covering over the quiet face of the dead.
*       *       *       *       *
At home in England the news of the battle of Colenso and the capture of
the British guns was received by a whole world with incredulity and
dismay. Throngs of people crowded the War Office, clamouring for
news--pouring out inquiries and lamentations,--reading the terrible list
of casualties, and while reading scarcely believing what their own eyes
beheld. Major Desmond, furious at the mere idea of any disaster to the
British arms, stood reading the list, without half understanding what he
saw, so bewildered and stunned was his mind with the cruel and
unexpected nature of the dispatches from the front, till all at once he
saw--
"Captain Fitzgerald Crosby. Killed."
He staggered back as though he had received a blow.
"What, Fitz? Poor old Fitz! Gone so soon? No--surely not possible!"
He read the announcement again and again, feeling quite sick and giddy;
and his eyes, wandering up and down the column, suddenly fell on the
name "D'Arcy-Muir."
"Robert D'Arcy-Muir--Private. Killed."
"Now wait a bit!" said the Major, sternly apostrophising himself--"This
won't do! You're dreaming, old man! It's no good fancying oneself in a
nightmare. Robert D'Arcy-Muir,--private--in what regiment?--Scots
Fusiliers. Now let me see!"
He went straight to one of the chief authorities at the War Office--a
man whom he knew intimately and who would be most likely to help him.
"Robert D'Arcy-Muir,--private--Scots Fusiliers? Curious you should ask
me about him!--his name came under my notice quite by chance two years
ago. Yes--I remember the case quite well. He was the only son of an
officer of good family, Captain the Honourable D'Arcy-Muir. He was at
Sandhurst, but unfortunately got expelled for being drunk and
disorderly. He told his story, it appears, quite frankly, when he
enlisted, and his honesty stood him rather in good stead. He was quite a
favourite with the regiment, I believe. Killed, is he?--And you knew
him?--Sorry, I'm sure. Will I see that his parents are
informed?--Certainly. Have you the address? Thanks. They didn't know he
had enlisted? Odd! They couldn't have cared much. I suppose they dropped
him when he was expelled. Good morning! I'm afraid you've had a shock.
These are trying times for every one."
And the Major's informant shook hands with him kindly, and turned to
other matters, for urgent business was crowding his hours of time, and
there was more than enough for him to do. Desmond went out of his
presence, weary, broken down, and as it were stricken old for the first
time. The curt and sudden announcement of the death of his old chum
'Fitz' had overwhelmed him--and now, the certainty of Boy's death as
well, a death so swift, so tragic, so far away from home, made him
shudder with fear and horror as he thought of Miss Letty. She had been
very ailing since Violet had gone to South Africa, and yielding to the
Major's entreaties she had sent for old Margaret, her former faithful
attendant. And Margaret had had come at once, and now scarcely ever left
her. To Margaret she talked constantly of Boy, and the hopes she had of
seeing him again--hopes, alas!--that were now to be completely and for
ever destroyed.
"Shall I tell her?" thought the Major woefully--"or shall I keep it
secret for a little while? But if I do not speak, his parents will be
sure to write and inform her. Nothing would please that woman
D'Arcy-Muir more than to frighten her with a big black-bordered
envelope. I think I'd better try and break it to her gently. Poor Fitz!
He's got his promotion! Well! I suppose it's the way he would have liked
best to die if he'd been given a choice. But Boy! So young! Poor
fellow--poor little chap!--with mettle in him after all! Wasted
life--wasted hope--wasted love--all a waste! God knows I've done my best
to keep a stout heart--but upon my soul, life is a sad and cruel
business!"
With slow and lagging footsteps he made his reluctant way to Hans Place
and to Miss Letty's always bright house, though it was scarcely so
bright now as it used to be, for the hand of its gentle mistress was not
so active and her supervision was not so careful and vigilant. And to
the Major's deeply afflicted mind the fact that some of the blinds were
down, impressed him with an uncomfortable sense of gloom.
"Looks as if she were mourning for Boy already!" he murmured, as he rang
the bell.
Margaret opened the door.
"How is Miss Letty?"
"Well, sir, she was a bit nervous last night and low in her spirits--but
this morning she woke up quite bright and bonnie-like--more like her old
self than she's been for many a day. And she said to me, 'Margaret, I
think I shall hear news of Boy to-day'----"
The Major gave a sigh that was more a groan.
"She said that?"
"Ay sir, 'deed she did. But you're lookin' wan and weary yourself,
sir,--I hope there's no bad tidings----"
The Major interrupted her by a grave gesture.
"Where is she?"
"Just in the morning-room as usual, sir, reading. I left her there an
hour ago--she had some letters to write, she said--and she was just as
bright and cheery as could be--an' a little while since I peeped in and
she was sitting by the fire wi' a book----"
"All right. I'll go to her. If I want you, I'll call."
He entered the morning-room with a very quiet step. There was a bright
fire sparkling in the grate, and Miss Letty was seated beside it, in her
arm-chair, with a book on her knee, her back turned towards him. Her
favourite bird was singing prettily in its cage, pecking daintily now
and then at the bit of sugar she daily gave it with her own hands. The
Major coughed gently. Miss Letty did not stir. Somewhat surprised at
this, he advanced a little farther into the room.
"Letty!"
No answer.
"My God!"
He sprang to her side.
"Letty!--Letty dear!--Letty!--Not dead! Oh, Letty, Letty!--Not dead!"
A smile was on her sweet old face,--her eyes were closed. The great Book
resting on her knee was the Book which teaches us all the way to
Heaven,--and her little thin white hand, with its diamond betrothal
ring sparkling upon it, lay cold and stiff upon the open page. Overcome
by too great an awe for weeping or loud clamour in the presence of this
simple yet queenly majesty of death, her faithful lover of many years
knelt humbly down, broken-hearted, to read the words on which that hand
rested.
"Peace I leave with you,--My peace I give unto you,--not as the world
giveth, give I unto you!"
And kneeling still, he reverently kissed that dear, loyal, pure little
hand,--once and twice for the sake of the slain "Boy" lying at rest in
his South African grave,--once and yet again for his own deep love of
the Angel gone back to her native home with God, and murmured,--
"Better so, Letty! Better so!"
THE END.