So accomplished a person as the reader must have seen at once that I
made away with Timothy in order to give his little vests and pinafores
and shoes to David, and, therefore, dear sir or madam, rail not overmuch
at me for causing our painter pain. Know, too, that though his sympathy
ran free I soon discovered many of his inquiries to be prompted by a
mere selfish desire to save his boy from the fate of mine. Such are
parents.
He asked compassionately if there was anything he could do for me, and,
of course, there was something he could do, but were I to propose it I
doubted not he would be on his stilts at once, for already I had reason
to know him for a haughty, sensitive dog, who ever became high at the
first hint of help. So the proposal must come from him. I spoke of the
many little things in the house that were now hurtful to me to look
upon, and he clutched my hand, deeply moved, though it was another house
with its little things he saw. I was ashamed to harass him thus, but he
had not a sufficiency of the little things, and besides my impulsiveness
had plunged me into a deuce of a mess, so I went on distastefully. Was
there no profession in this age of specialism for taking away children's
garments from houses where they were suddenly become a pain? Could I
sell them? Could I give them to the needy, who would probably dispose of
them for gin? I told him of a friend with a young child who had already
refused them because it would be unpleasant to him to be reminded of
Timothy, and I think this was what touched him to the quick, so that he
made the offer I was waiting for.
I had done it with a heavy foot, and by this time was in a rage with
both him and myself, but I always was a bungler, and, having adopted
this means in a hurry, I could at the time see no other easy way out.
Timothy's hold on life, as you may have apprehended, was ever of the
slightest, and I suppose I always knew that he must soon revert to the
obscure. He could never have penetrated into the open. It was no life
for a boy.
Yet now, that his time had come, I was loath to see him go. I seem
to remember carrying him that evening to the window with uncommon
tenderness (following the setting sun that was to take him away), and
telling him with not unnatural bitterness that he had got to leave me
because another child was in need of all his pretty things; and as the
sun, his true father, lapt him in its dancing arms, he sent his love to
a lady of long ago whom he called by the sweetest of names, not knowing
in his innocence that the little white birds are the birds that never
have a mother. I wished (so had the phantasy of Timothy taken possession
of me) that before he went he could have played once in the Kensington
Gardens, and have ridden on the fallen trees, calling gloriously to me
to look; that he could have sailed one paper-galleon on the Round Pond;
fain would I have had him chase one hoop a little way down the laughing
avenues of childhood, where memory tells us we run but once, on a long
summer-day, emerging at the other end as men and women with all the fun
to pay for; and I think (thus fancy wantons with me in these desolate
chambers) he knew my longings, and said with a boy-like flush that the
reason he never did these things was not that he was afraid, for he
would have loved to do them all, but because he was not quite like other
boys; and, so saying, he let go my finger and faded from before my eyes
into another and golden ether; but I shall ever hold that had he been
quite like other boys there would have been none braver than my Timothy.
I fear I am not truly brave myself, for though when under fire, so far
as I can recollect, I behaved as others, morally I seem to be deficient.
So I discovered next day when I attempted to buy David's outfit,
and found myself as shy of entering the shop as any Mary at the
pawnbroker's. The shop for little garments seems very alarming when you
reach the door; a man abruptly become a parent, and thus lost to a
finer sense of the proprieties, may be able to stalk in unprotected, but
apparently I could not. Indeed, I have allowed a repugnance to entering
shops of any kind, save my tailor's, to grow on me, and to my tailor's I
fear I go too frequently.
So I skulked near the shop of the little garments, jeering at myself,
and it was strange to me to reflect at, say, three o'clock that if I had
been brazen at half-past two all would now be over.
To show what was my state, take the case of the very gentleman-like man
whom I detected gazing fixedly at me, or so I thought, just as I had
drawn valiantly near the door. I sauntered away, but when I returned
he was still there, which seemed conclusive proof that he had smoked
my purpose. Sternly controlling my temper I bowed, and said with icy
politeness, “You have the advantage of me, sir.”
“I beg your pardon,” said he, and I am now persuaded that my words
turned his attention to me for the first time, but at the moment I was
sure some impertinent meaning lurked behind his answer.
“I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance,” I barked.
“No one regrets it more than I do,” he replied, laughing.
“I mean, sir,” said I, “that I shall wait here until you retire,” and
with that I put my back to a shop-window.
By this time he was grown angry, and said he, “I have no engagement,”
and he put his back to the shop-window. Each of us was doggedly
determined to tire the other out, and we must have looked ridiculous. We
also felt it, for ten minutes afterward, our passions having died away,
we shook hands cordially and agreed to call hansoms.
Must I abandon the enterprise? Certainly I knew divers ladies who would
make the purchases for me, but first I must explain, and, rather
than explain it has ever been my custom to do without. I was in this
despondency when a sudden recollection of Irene and Mrs. Hicking
heartened me like a cordial, for I saw in them at once the engine and
decoy by which David should procure his outfit.
You must be told who they were.