We had been together, we three, in my rooms, David telling me about the
fairy language and Porthos lolling on the sofa listening, as one may
say. It is his favourite place of a dull day, and under him were some
sheets of newspaper, which I spread there at such times to deceive my
housekeeper, who thinks dogs should lie on the floor.
Fairy me tribber is what you say to the fairies when you want them to
give you a cup of tea, but it is not so easy as it looks, for all the
r's should be pronounced as w's, and I forget this so often that David
believes I should find difficulty in making myself understood.
“What would you say,” he asked me, “if you wanted them to turn you
into a hollyhock?” He thinks the ease with which they can turn you into
things is their most engaging quality.
The answer is Fairy me lukka, but though he had often told me this I
again forgot the lukka.
“I should never dream,” I said (to cover my discomfiture), “of asking
them to turn me into anything. If I was a hollyhock I should soon
wither, David.”
He himself had provided me with this objection not long before, but
now he seemed to think it merely silly. “Just before the time to wither
begins,” he said airily, “you say to them Fairy me bola.”
Fairy me bola means “Turn me back again,” and David's discovery made
me uncomfortable, for I knew he had hitherto kept his distance of
the fairies mainly because of a feeling that their conversions are
permanent.
So I returned him to his home. I send him home from my rooms under the
care of Porthos. I may walk on the other side unknown to them, but they
have no need of me, for at such times nothing would induce Porthos to
depart from the care of David. If anyone addresses them he growls softly
and shows the teeth that crunch bones as if they were biscuits. Thus
amicably the two pass on to Mary's house, where Porthos barks his
knock-and-ring bark till the door is opened. Sometimes he goes in
with David, but on this occasion he said good-bye on the step. Nothing
remarkable in this, but he did not return to me, not that day nor next
day nor in weeks and months. I was a man distraught; and David wore
his knuckles in his eyes. Conceive it, we had lost our dear Porthos--at
least--well--something disquieting happened. I don't quite know what to
think of it even now. I know what David thinks. However, you shall think
as you choose.
My first hope was that Porthos had strolled to the Gardens and got
locked in for the night, and almost as soon as Lock-out was over I was
there to make inquiries. But there was no news of Porthos, though
I learned that someone was believed to have spent the night in the
Gardens, a young gentleman who walked out hastily the moment the gates
were opened. He had said nothing, however, of having seen a dog. I
feared an accident now, for I knew no thief could steal him, yet even an
accident seemed incredible, he was always so cautious at crossings; also
there could not possibly have been an accident to Porthos without there
being an accident to something else.
David in the middle of his games would suddenly remember the great blank
and step aside to cry. It was one of his qualities that when he knew
he was about to cry he turned aside to do it and I always respected his
privacy and waited for him. Of course being but a little boy he was
soon playing again, but his sudden floods of feeling, of which we never
spoke, were dear to me in those desolate days.
We had a favourite haunt, called the Story-seat, and we went back to
that, meaning not to look at the grass near it where Porthos used to
squat, but we could not help looking at it sideways, and to our distress
a man was sitting on the acquainted spot. He rose at our approach and
took two steps toward us, so quick that they were almost jumps, then
as he saw that we were passing indignantly I thought I heard him give a
little cry.
I put him down for one of your garrulous fellows who try to lure
strangers into talk, but next day, when we found him sitting on the
Story-seat itself, I had a longer scrutiny of him. He was dandiacally
dressed, seemed to tell something under twenty years and had a handsome
wistful face atop of a heavy, lumbering, almost corpulent figure, which
however did not betoken inactivity; for David's purple hat (a conceit of
his mother's of which we were both heartily ashamed) blowing off as we
neared him he leapt the railings without touching them and was back with
it in three seconds; only instead of delivering it straightway he seemed
to expect David to chase him for it.
You have introduced yourself to David when you jump the railings without
touching them, and William Paterson (as proved to be his name) was at
once our friend. We often found him waiting for us at the Story-seat,
and the great stout fellow laughed and wept over our tales like a
three-year-old. Often he said with extraordinary pride, “You are telling
the story to me quite as much as to David, ar'n't you?” He was of an
innocence such as you shall seldom encounter, and believed stories at
which even David blinked. Often he looked at me in quick alarm if David
said that of course these things did not really happen, and unable to
resist that appeal I would reply that they really did. I never saw him
irate except when David was still sceptical, but then he would say quite
warningly “He says it is true, so it must be true.” This brings me to
that one of his qualities, which at once gratified and pained me, his
admiration for myself. His eyes, which at times had a rim of red, were
ever fixed upon me fondly except perhaps when I told him of Porthos and
said that death alone could have kept him so long from my side. Then
Paterson's sympathy was such that he had to look away. He was shy of
speaking of himself so I asked him no personal questions, but concluded
that his upbringing must have been lonely, to account for his ignorance
of affairs, and loveless, else how could he have felt such a drawing to
me?
I remember very well the day when the strange, and surely monstrous,
suspicion first made my head tingle. We had been blown, the three of
us, to my rooms by a gust of rain; it was also, I think, the first time
Paterson had entered them. “Take the sofa, Mr. Paterson,” I said, as
I drew a chair nearer to the fire, and for the moment my eyes were off
him. Then I saw that, before sitting down on the sofa, he was spreading
the day's paper over it. “Whatever makes you do that?” I asked, and he
started like one bewildered by the question, then went white and pushed
the paper aside.
David had noticed nothing, but I was strangely uncomfortable, and,
despite my efforts at talk, often lapsed into silence, to be roused from
it by a feeling that Paterson was looking at me covertly. Pooh! what
vapours of the imagination were these. I blew them from me, and to prove
to myself, so to speak, that they were dissipated, I asked him to
see David home. As soon as I was alone, I flung me down on the floor
laughing, then as quickly jumped up and was after them, and very sober
too, for it was come to me abruptly as an odd thing that Paterson had
set off without asking where David lived.
Seeing them in front of me, I crossed the street and followed. They were
walking side by side rather solemnly, and perhaps nothing remarkable
happened until they reached David's door. I say perhaps, for something
did occur. A lady, who has several pretty reasons for frequenting the
Gardens, recognised David in the street, and was stooping to address
him, when Paterson did something that alarmed her. I was too far off
to see what it was, but had he growled “Hands off!” she could not have
scurried away more precipitately. He then ponderously marched his
charge to the door, where, assuredly, he did a strange thing. Instead of
knocking or ringing, he stood on the step and called out sharply, “Hie,
hie, hie!” until the door was opened.
The whimsy, for it could be nothing more, curtailed me of my sleep that
night, and you may picture me trying both sides of the pillow.
I recalled other queer things of Paterson, and they came back to me
charged with new meanings. There was his way of shaking hands. He now
did it in the ordinary way, but when first we knew him his arm had
described a circle, and the hand had sometimes missed mine and come
heavily upon my chest instead. His walk, again, might more correctly
have been called a waddle.
There were his perfervid thanks. He seldom departed without thanking me
with an intensity that was out of proportion to the little I had done
for him. In the Gardens, too, he seemed ever to take the sward rather
than the seats, perhaps a wise preference, but he had an unusual way of
sitting down. I can describe it only by saying that he let go of himself
and went down with a thud.
I reverted to the occasion when he lunched with me at the Club. We had
cutlets, and I noticed that he ate his in a somewhat finicking manner;
yet having left the table for a moment to consult the sweets-card,
I saw, when I returned, that there was now no bone on his plate. The
waiters were looking at him rather curiously.
David was very partial to him, but showed it in a somewhat singular
manner, used to pat his head, for instance. I remembered, also, that
while David shouted to me or Irene to attract our attention, he usually
whistled to Paterson, he could not explain why.
These ghosts made me to sweat in bed, not merely that night, but often
when some new shock brought them back in force, yet, unsupported,
they would have disturbed me little by day. Day, however, had its
reflections, and they came to me while I was shaving, that ten minutes
when, brought face to face with the harsher realities of life, we see
things most clearly as they are. Then the beautiful nature of Paterson
loomed offensively, and his honest eyes insulted over me. No one come to
nigh twenty years had a right to such faith in his fellow-creatures. He
could not backbite, nor envy, nor prevaricate, nor jump at mean motives
for generous acts. He had not a single base story about women. It all
seemed inhuman.
What creatures we be! I was more than half ashamed of Paterson's faith
in me, but when I saw it begin to shrink I fought for it. An easy task,
you may say, but it was a hard one, for gradually a change had come over
the youth. I am now arrived at a time when the light-heartedness had
gone out of him; he had lost his zest for fun, and dubiety sat in the
eyes that were once so certain. He was not doubtful of me, not then, but
of human nature in general; that whilom noble edifice was tottering. He
mixed with boys in the Gardens; ah, mothers, it is hard to say, but how
could he retain his innocence when he had mixed with boys? He heard your
talk of yourselves, and so, ladies, that part of the edifice went down.
I have not the heart to follow him in all his discoveries. Sometimes
he went in flame at them, but for the most part he stood looking on,
bewildered and numbed, like one moaning inwardly.
He saw all, as one fresh to the world, before he had time to breathe
upon the glass. So would your child be, madam, if born with a man's
powers, and when disillusioned of all else, he would cling for a moment
longer to you, the woman of whom, before he saw you, he had heard so
much. How you would strive to cheat him, even as I strove to hide my
real self from Paterson, and still you would strive as I strove after
you knew the game was up.
The sorrowful eyes of Paterson stripped me bare. There were days when I
could not endure looking at him, though surely I have long ceased to be
a vain man. He still met us in the Gardens, but for hours he and I would
be together without speaking. It was so upon the last day, one of those
innumerable dreary days when David, having sneezed the night before,
was kept at home in flannel, and I sat alone with Paterson on the
Story-seat. At last I turned to address him. Never had we spoken of what
chained our tongues, and I meant only to say now that we must go, for
soon the gates would close, but when I looked at him I saw that he was
more mournful than ever before; he shut his eyes so tightly that a drop
of blood fell from them.
“It was all over, Paterson, long ago,” I broke out harshly, “why do we
linger?”
He beat his hands together miserably, and yet cast me appealing looks
that had much affection in them.
“You expected too much of me,” I told him, and he bowed his head. “I
don't know where you brought your grand ideas of men and women from. I
don't want to know,” I added hastily.
“But it must have been from a prettier world than this,” I said: “are
you quite sure that you were wise in leaving it?”
He rose and sat down again. “I wanted to know you,” he replied slowly,
“I wanted to be like you.”
“And now you know me,” I said, “do you want to be like me still? I am a
curious person to attach oneself to, Paterson; don't you see that even
David often smiles at me when he thinks he is unobserved. I work very
hard to retain that little boy's love; but I shall lose him soon; even
now I am not what I was to him; in a year or two at longest, Paterson,
David will grow out of me.”
The poor fellow shot out his hand to me, but “No,” said I, “you have
found me out. Everybody finds me out except my dog, and that is why the
loss of him makes such a difference to me. Shall we go, Paterson?”
He would not come with me, and I left him on the seat; when I was far
away I looked back, and he was still sitting there forlornly.
For long I could not close my ears that night: I lay listening, I knew
not what for. A scare was on me that made me dislike the dark, and I
switched on the light and slept at last. I was roused by a great to-do
in the early morning, servants knocking excitedly, and my door opened,
and the dear Porthos I had mourned so long tore in. They had heard his
bark, but whence he came no one knew.
He was in excellent condition, and after he had leaped upon me from all
points I flung him on the floor by a trick I know, and lay down beside
him, while he put his protecting arm round me and looked at me with the
old adoring eyes.
But we never saw Paterson again. You may think as you choose.