She sobered. "Yes," she said in a whisper. "Yes, I am. I'm afraid that
he'll change things, that he'll not approve of Martha, or the way dinner
is made, or my habits in dishwashing or bedmaking or marketing or
something that will--well, put me right in the role of a paid
chambermaid, a servant, a menial with no more to say about the running
of the house, once he returns."
James Holden hesitated, thought, then smiled.
"Mrs. Bagley," he said apologetically, "I've thrown you a lot of curves.
I hope you won't mind one more."
The woman frowned. James said hurriedly, "Oh, it's nothing bad, believe
me. I mean--Well, you'll have to judge for yourself.
"You see, Mrs. Bagley," he said earnestly, "there isn't any Charles
Maxwell."
* * * * *
Janet Bagley, with the look of a stricken animal, sat down heavily. There
were two thoughts suddenly in her mind: _Now I've got to leave_, and,
_But I can't leave_.
She sat looking at the boy, trying to make sense of what he had said.
Mrs. Bagley was a young woman, but she had lived a demanding and
unrelenting life; her husband dead, her finances calamitous, a baby to
feed and raise ... there had been enough trouble in her life and she
sought no more.
But she was also a woman of some strength of character.
Janet Bagley had not been able to afford much joy, but when things were
at their worst she had not wept. She had been calm. She had taken what
inexpensive pleasures she could secure--the health of her daughter, the
strength of her arms to earn a living, the cunning of her mind to make a
dollar do the work of five. She had learned that there was no bargain
that was not worth investigating; the shoddiest goods were worth owning
at a price; the least attractive prospect had to be faced and understood,
for any commodity becomes a bargain when the price is right. There was
no room for laziness or indulgence in her life. There was also no room
for panic.
So Janet Bagley thought for a moment, and then said: "Tell me what you're
talking about, James."
James Holden said immediately: "I am Charles Maxwell. That is, 'Charles
Maxwell' is a pen name. He has no other existence."
"But--"
"But it's true, Mrs. Bagley," the boy said earnestly. "I'm only eight
years old, but I happen to be earning my own living--as a writer, under
the name of, among others, Charles Maxwell. Perhaps you've looked up some
of the 'Charles Maxwell' books? If so, you may have seen some of the book
reviews that were quoted on the jackets--I remember one that said that
Charles Maxwell writes as though he himself were a boy, with the
education of an adult. Well, that's the fact of the case."
Mrs. Bagley said slowly, "But I did look Mr. Max--I mean, I did look you
up. There was a complete biographical sketch in _Woman's Life_.
Thirty-one years old, I remember."
"I know. I wrote it. It too was fiction."
"You wrote--but why?"
"Because I was asked to write it," said James.
"But, well--what I mean, is--Just who is Mr. Maxwell? The man at the
station said something about a hermit, but--"
"The Hermit of Martin's Hill is a convenient character carefully prepared
to explain what might have looked like a very odd household," said James
Holden. "Charles Maxwell, the Hermit, does not exist except in the minds
of the neighbors and the editors of several magazines, and of course, the
readers of those pages."
"But he wrote me himself." The bewildered woman paused.
"That's right, Mrs. Bagley. There's absolutely nothing illegal about a
writer's using a pen name. Absolutely nothing. Some writers become so
well-known by their pseudonym that they answer when someone calls them.
So long as the writer isn't wanted by the F.B.I. for some heinous crime,
and so long as he can unscramble the gobbledygook on Form 1040, stay out
of trouble, pay his rent, and make his regular contributions to Social
Security, nobody cares what name he uses."
"But where are your parents? Have you no friends? No legal guardian? Who
handles your business affairs?"
James said in a flat tone of recital, "My parents are dead. What friends
and family I have, want to turn me over to my legal guardian. My legal
guardian is the murderer of my parents and the would-have-been murderer
of me if I hadn't been lucky. Someday I shall prove it. And I handle my
affairs myself, by mail, as you well know. I placed the advertisement,
wrote the letters of reply, wrote those letters that answered specific
questions and asked others, and I wrote the check that you cashed in
order to buy your railroad ticket, Mrs. Bagley. No, don't worry. It's
good."
Mrs. Bagley tried to digest all that and failed. She returned to the
central point. "But you're a minor--"
"I am," admitted James Holden. "But you accepted my checks, your bank
accepted my checks, and they've been honored by the clearing houses. My
own bank has been accepting them for a couple of years now. It will
continue to be that way until something goes wrong and I'm found out. I'm
taking every precaution that nothing goes wrong."
"Still--"
"Mrs. Bagley, look at me. I am precisely what I seem to be. I am a young
male human being, eight years old, possessed of a good command of the
English language and an education superior to the schooling of any
high-school graduate. It is true that I am an infant in the eyes of the
law, so I have not the right to hold the ear of the law long enough to
explain my competence."
"But--"
"Listen a moment," insisted James. "You can't hope to hear it all in one
short afternoon. It may take weeks before you fully understand."
"You assume that I'll stay, then?"
James smiled. Not the wide open, simple smile of youth but the knowing
smile of someone pleased with the success of his own plans. "Mrs. Bagley,
of the many replies to my advertisement, yours was selected because you
are in a near-desperate position. My advertisement must have sounded
tailor-made to fit your case; a young widow to work as resident
housekeeper, child of preschool or early school age welcome. Well, Mrs.
Bagley, your qualifications are tailor-made for me, too. You are in need,
and I can give you what you need--a living salary, a home for you and
your daughter, and for your daughter an education that will far transcend
any that you could ever provide for her."
"And how do you intend to make that come to pass?"
"Mrs. Bagley, at the present time there are only two people alive who
know the answer to that question. I am one of them. The other is my
so-called legal 'guardian' who would be most happy to guard me right out
of my real secret. You will be the third person alive to know that my
mother and father built a machine that produces the same deeply-inlaid
memory-track of information as many months of learning-by-repetition.
With that machine, I absorbed the information available to a high-school
student before I was five. I am rebuilding that machine now from plans
and specifications drilled into my brain by my father. When it is
complete, I intend to become the best informed person in the world."
"That isn't right," breathed Mrs. Bagley.
"Isn't it?" asked James seriously. "Isn't it right? Is it wrong, when at
the present time it takes a man until he is almost thirty years old
before he can say that his education is complete?"
"Well, I suppose you're right."
James eyed Mrs. Bagley carefully. He said softly, "Mrs. Bagley, tell me,
would you give Martha a college education if you had--or will you if you
have at the time--the wherewithal to provide it?"
"Of course."
"You have it here," said James. "So long as you stay to protect it."
"But won't it make--?" her voice trailed away uncertainly.
"A little intellectual monster out of her?" laughed the boy. "Maybe.
Maybe I am, too. On the other hand it might make a brilliant woman out of
her. She might be a doctor if she has the capacity of a brilliant doctor.
My father's machine is no monster-maker, Mrs. Bagley. With it a person
could memorize the Britannica. And from the Britannica that person would
learn that there is much good in the world and also that there is rich
reward for being a part of that capacity for good."
"I seem to have been outmaneuvered," said Mrs. Bagley with a worried
frown.
James smiled. "Not at all," he said. "It was just a matter of finding
someone who wanted desperately to have what I wanted to give, and of
course overcoming the natural adult reluctance to admit that anybody
my size and age can operate on grown-up terms."
"You sound so sure of yourself."
"I am sure of myself. And one of the more important things in life is to
understand one's limitations."
"But couldn't you convince them--?"
"One--you--I can convince. Maybe another, later. But if I tackle the
great American public, I'm licked by statistics. My guess is that there
is one brand-new United States citizen born every ten seconds. It takes
me longer than ten seconds to convince someone, that I know what I'm
talking about. But so long as I have an accepted adult out front, running
the store, I don't have to do anything but sit backstage, run the hidden
strings, and wait until my period of growth provides me with a stature
that won't demand any explanation."
From the playroom, Martha came running. "Mummy! Mummy!" she cried in a
shrill voice filled with the strident tones of alarm, "Dolly's sick and
I can't leave her!"
Mrs. Bagley folded her daughter in her arms. "We won't leave," she said.
"We're staying."
James Holden nodded with satisfaction, but one thing he realized then and
there: He simply had to rush the completion of his father's machine.
He could not stand the simpering prattle of Martha Bagley's playgames.