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 comédie! 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 comédie! Et Dieu s’amuse!_”