This Oliver Bailey was one of the most dashing figures in the Gardens,
and without apparent effort was daily drawing nearer the completion
of his seventh year at a time when David seemed unable to get beyond
half-past five. I have to speak of him in the past tense, for gone is
Oliver from the Gardens (gone to Pilkington's) but he is still a name
among us, and some lordly deeds are remembered of him, as that his
father shaved twice a day. Oliver himself was all on that scale.
His not ignoble ambition seems always to have been to be wrecked upon
an island, indeed I am told that he mentioned it insinuatingly in his
prayers, and it was perhaps inevitable that a boy with such an outlook
should fascinate David. I am proud, therefore, to be able to state on
wood that it was Oliver himself who made the overture.
On first hearing, from some satellite of Oliver's, of Wrecked Islands,
as they are called in the Gardens, David said wistfully that he supposed
you needed to be very very good before you had any chance of being
wrecked, and the remark was conveyed to Oliver, on whom it made
an uncomfortable impression. For a time he tried to evade it, but
ultimately David was presented to him and invited gloomily to say
it again. The upshot was that Oliver advertised the Gardens of his
intention to be good until he was eight, and if he had not been wrecked
by that time, to be as jolly bad as a boy could be. He was naturally so
bad that at the Kindergarten Academy, when the mistress ordered whoever
had done the last naughty deed to step forward, Oliver's custom had been
to step forward, not necessarily because he had done it, but because he
presumed he very likely had.
The friendship of the two dated from this time, and at first I thought
Oliver discovered generosity in hasting to David as to an equal; he also
walked hand in hand with him, and even reproved him for delinquencies
like a loving elder brother. But 'tis a gray world even in the Gardens,
for I found that a new arrangement had been made which reduced Oliver to
life-size. He had wearied of well-doing, and passed it on, so to speak,
to his friend. In other words, on David now devolved the task of being
good until he was eight, while Oliver clung to him so closely that the
one could not be wrecked without the other.
When this was made known to me it was already too late to break the
spell of Oliver, David was top-heavy with pride in him, and, faith, I
began to find myself very much in the cold, for Oliver was frankly bored
by me and even David seemed to think it would be convenient if I went
and sat with Irene. Am I affecting to laugh? I was really distressed and
lonely, and rather bitter; and how humble I became. Sometimes when the
dog Joey is unable, by frisking, to induce Porthos to play with him,
he stands on his hind legs and begs it of him, and I do believe I
was sometimes as humble as Joey. Then David would insist on my being
suffered to join them, but it was plain that he had no real occasion for
me.
It was an unheroic trouble, and I despised myself. For years I had
been fighting Mary for David, and had not wholly failed though she was
advantaged by the accident of relationship; was I now to be knocked out
so easily by a seven year old? I reconsidered my weapons, and I fought
Oliver and beat him. Figure to yourself those two boys become as
faithful to me as my coat-tails.
With wrecked islands I did it. I began in the most unpretentious way by
telling them a story which might last an hour, and favoured by many an
unexpected wind it lasted eighteen months. It started as the wreck of
the simple Swiss family who looked up and saw the butter tree, but soon
a glorious inspiration of the night turned it into the wreck of David
A---- and Oliver Bailey. At first it was what they were to do when they
were wrecked, but imperceptibly it became what they had done. I spent
much of my time staring reflectively at the titles of the boys' stories
in the booksellers' windows, whistling for a breeze, so to say, for
I found that the titles were even more helpful than the stories. We
wrecked everybody of note, including all Homer's most taking characters
and the hero of Paradise Lost. But we suffered them not to land. We
stripped them of what we wanted and left them to wander the high seas
naked of adventure. And all this was merely the beginning.
By this time I had been cast upon the island. It was not my own
proposal, but David knew my wishes, and he made it all right for me with
Oliver. They found me among the breakers with a large dog, which had
kept me afloat throughout that terrible night. I was the sole survivor
of the ill-fated Anna Pink. So exhausted was I that they had to carry
me to their hut, and great was my gratitude when on opening my eyes, I
found myself in that romantic edifice instead of in Davy Jones's locker.
As we walked in the Gardens I told them of the hut they had built; and
they were inflated but not surprised. On the other hand they looked for
surprise from me.
“Did we tell you about the turtle we turned on its back?” asked Oliver,
reverting to deeds of theirs of which I had previously told them.
“You did.”
“Who turned it?” demanded David, not as one who needed information but
after the manner of a schoolmaster.
“It was turned,” I said, “by David A----, the younger of the two
youths.”
“Who made the monkeys fling cocoa-nuts at him?” asked the older of the
two youths.
“Oliver Bailey,” I replied.
“Was it Oliver,” asked David sharply, “that found the cocoa-nut-tree
first?”
“On the contrary,” I answered, “it was first observed by David,
who immediately climbed it, remarking, 'This is certainly the
cocos-nucifera, for, see, dear Oliver, the slender columns supporting
the crown of leaves which fall with a grace that no art can imitate.'”
“That's what I said,” remarked David with a wave of his hand.
“I said things like that, too,” Oliver insisted.
“No, you didn't then,” said David.
“Yes, I did so.”
“No, you didn't so.”
“Shut up.”
“Well, then, let's hear one you said.”
Oliver looked appealingly at me. “The following,” I announced, “is
one that Oliver said: 'Truly dear comrade, though the perils of these
happenings are great, and our privations calculated to break the
stoutest heart, yet to be rewarded by such fair sights I would endure
still greater trials and still rejoice even as the bird on yonder
bough.'”
“That's one I said!” crowed Oliver.
“I shot the bird,” said David instantly.
“What bird?”
“The yonder bird.”
“No, you didn't.”
“Did I not shoot the bird?”
“It was David who shot the bird,” I said, “but it was Oliver who saw
by its multi-coloured plumage that it was one of the Psittacidae, an
excellent substitute for partridge.”
“You didn't see that,” said Oliver, rather swollen.
“Yes, I did.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw that.”
“What?”
“You shut up.”
“David shot it,” I summed up, “and Oliver knew its name, but I ate it.
Do you remember how hungry I was?”
“Rather!” said David.
“I cooked it,” said Oliver.
“It was served up on toast,” I reminded them.
“I toasted it,” said David.
“Toast from the bread-fruit-tree,” I said, “which (as you both remarked
simultaneously) bears two and sometimes three crops in a year, and also
affords a serviceable gum for the pitching of canoes.”
“I pitched mine best,” said Oliver.
“I pitched mine farthest,” said David.
“And when I had finished my repast,” said I, “you amazed me by handing
me a cigar from the tobacco-plant.”
“I handed it,” said Oliver.
“I snicked off the end,” said David.
“And then,” said I, “you gave me a light.”
“Which of us?” they cried together.
“Both of you,” I said. “Never shall I forget my amazement when I saw you
get that light by rubbing two sticks together.”
At this they waggled their heads. “You couldn't have done it!” said
David.
“No, David,” I admitted, “I can't do it, but of course I know that all
wrecked boys do it quite easily. Show me how you did it.”
But after consulting apart they agreed not to show me. I was not shown
everything.
David was now firmly convinced that he had once been wrecked on an
island, while Oliver passed his days in dubiety. They used to argue it
out together and among their friends. As I unfolded the story Oliver
listened with an open knife in his hand, and David who was not allowed
to have a knife wore a pirate-string round his waist. Irene in her usual
interfering way objected to this bauble and dropped disparaging remarks
about wrecked islands which were little to her credit. I was for defying
her, but David, who had the knack of women, knew a better way; he
craftily proposed that we “should let Irene in,” in short, should wreck
her, and though I objected, she proved a great success and recognised
the yucca filamentosa by its long narrow leaves the very day she joined
us. Thereafter we had no more scoffing from Irene, who listened to the
story as hotly as anybody.
This encouraged us in time to let in David's father and mother, though
they never knew it unless he told them, as I have no doubt he did. They
were admitted primarily to gratify David, who was very soft-hearted and
knew that while he was on the island they must be missing him very much
at home. So we let them in, and there was no part of the story he liked
better than that which told of the joyous meeting. We were in need of
another woman at any rate, someone more romantic looking than Irene, and
Mary, I can assure her now, had a busy time of it. She was constantly
being carried off by cannibals, and David became quite an adept at
plucking her from the very pot itself and springing from cliff to cliff
with his lovely burden in his arms. There was seldom a Saturday in which
David did not kill his man.
I shall now provide the proof that David believed it all to be as true
as true. It was told me by Oliver, who had it from our hero himself. I
had described to them how the savages had tattooed David's father, and
Oliver informed me that one night shortly afterward David was discovered
softly lifting the blankets off his father's legs to have a look at the
birds and reptiles etched thereon.
Thus many months passed with no word of Pilkington, and you may be
asking where he was all this time. Ah, my friends, he was very busy
fishing, though I was as yet unaware of his existence. Most suddenly I
heard the whirr of his hated reel, as he struck a fish. I remember that
grim day with painful vividness, it was a wet day, indeed I think it has
rained for me more or less ever since. As soon as they joined me I saw
from the manner of the two boys that they had something to communicate.
Oliver nudged David and retired a few paces, whereupon David said to me
solemnly,
“Oliver is going to Pilkington's.”
I immediately perceived that it was some school, but so little did I
understand the import of David's remark that I called out jocularly, “I
hope he won't swish you, Oliver.”
Evidently I had pained both of them, for they exchanged glances and
retired for consultation behind a tree, whence David returned to say
with emphasis,
“He has two jackets and two shirts and two knickerbockers, all real
ones.”
“Well done, Oliver!” said I, but it was the wrong thing again, and once
more they disappeared behind the tree. Evidently they decided that the
time for plain speaking was come, for now David announced bluntly:
“He wants you not to call him Oliver any longer.”
“What shall I call him?”
“Bailey.”
“But why?”
“He's going to Pilkington's. And he can't play with us any more after
next Saturday.”
“Why not?”
“He's going to Pilkington's.”
So now I knew the law about the thing, and we moved on together, Oliver
stretching himself consciously, and methought that even David walked
with a sedater air.
“David,” said I, with a sinking, “are you going to Pilkington's?”
“When I am eight,” he replied.
“And sha'n't I call you David then, and won't you play with me in the
Gardens any more?”
He looked at Bailey, and Bailey signalled him to be firm.
“Oh, no,” said David cheerily.
Thus sharply did I learn how much longer I was to have of him. Strange
that a little boy can give so much pain. I dropped his hand and walked
on in silence, and presently I did my most churlish to hurt him by
ending the story abruptly in a very cruel way. “Ten years have elapsed,”
said I, “since I last spoke, and our two heroes, now gay young men,
are revisiting the wrecked island of their childhood. 'Did we wreck
ourselves,' said one, 'or was there someone to help us?' And the other
who was the younger, replied, 'I think there was someone to help us,
a man with a dog. I think he used to tell me stories in the Kensington
Gardens, but I forget all about him; I don't remember even his name.'”
This tame ending bored Bailey, and he drifted away from us, but David
still walked by my side, and he was grown so quiet that I knew a storm
was brewing. Suddenly he flashed lightning on me. “It's not true,” he
cried, “it's a lie!” He gripped my hand. “I sha'n't never forget you,
father.”
Strange that a little boy can give so much pleasure.
Yet I could go on. “You will forget, David, but there was once a boy who
would have remembered.”
“Timothy?” said he at once. He thinks Timothy was a real boy, and is
very jealous of him. He turned his back to me, and stood alone and
wept passionately, while I waited for him. You may be sure I begged his
pardon, and made it all right with him, and had him laughing and happy
again before I let him go. But nevertheless what I said was true. David
is not my boy, and he will forget. But Timothy would have remembered.