the lawn from the kitchen window. But when I have safely arrived, turn
your attention to your own tea, or I shall look up and shake my fist at
your dear nice old face. And, I say, Martha, do you ever write
postcards? Because, if you want any ha'penny stamps, you will find
some on the storeroom blind. Only, _don't want them_, Martha, till
this week is over, and I am gone."
Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and made for the door.
Down the lawn he bore it, and set it safely on the rustic table. He
was very deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, remembering his
instructions, he contrived to set it down with something of a clatter.
Miss Charteris did not turn her head Her eyes, half closed beneath the
long lashes, were on the postern gate.
"Jenkins?" she said.
"Yes, ma'am," replied the Boy, in excellent imitation of the meek tones
of Jenkins.
"Should any one call this afternoon, Jenkins, please remember that I am
not 'at home.'"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" said the Boy.
Then she turned--and her face was all, and more than all, he had hoped
it might be.
"Oh, Boy," she said. "Oh, Boy dear!"
* * * * *
After that, it was a very happy tea. Neither had been quite natural,
nor had they been really true to themselves, the day before; so the
delight of meeting seemed to follow a longer parting than the actual
twenty-four hours. The Boy's brown eyes rested in tenderness on the
hand that filled his cup, and she did not say "Don't"; she merely
smiled indulgently, and added the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let
him do what he willed.
The hum of bees was in the garden; a sense of youth was in the air.
The sunbeams danced among the mulberry leaves.
The Boy insisted upon carrying back the tray, to do away at once with
the possibility of interruption from Jenkins. Then he drew their
chairs into the deeper shade of the mulberry-tree, a corner invisible
from all windows. The Boy had learned a lesson while looking through
the storeroom blind.
There they sat and talked, in calm content. It did not seem to matter
much of what they spoke, so long as they could lie back facing one
another; each listening to the voice which held so much more of meaning
in it than the mere words it uttered; each looking into the eyes which
had now become clear windows through which shone the soul.
Suddenly the Boy said: "How silly we were, the other day, to talk of
the relative ages of our bodies. What do they matter? Our souls are
the real you and I. And our souls are always the same age. Some souls
are old--old from the first. I have seen an old soul look out of the
eyes of a little child; and I have seen a young soul dance in the eyes
of an old, old woman. You and I, thank God, have young souls,
Christobel, and we shall be eternally young."
He stretched his arms over his head, in utter joyful content with life.
"Go on, Boy dear," said Christobel. "I am not sure that I agree with
you; but I like to hear you talk."
"At first," he said, "our bodies are so babyish that our souls do not
find them an adequate medium of expression. But by and by our bodies
grow and develop; after which come the beautiful years of perfection,
ten, twenty, thirty of them, when the young soul goes strong and gay
through life, clad in the strong gay young body. Then--gradually,
gradually, the strong young soul, in its unwearied, immortal youth,
wears out the body. The body grows old, but not the soul. Nothing can
age that; and when at last the body quite wears out, the young soul
breaks free, and begins again. Youthful souls wear out their bodies
quicker than old ones; just as a strong young boy romps through a suit
of clothes sooner than a weakly old man. But there is always life more
abundant, and a fuller life farther on. So the mating of souls is the
all-important thing; and when young souls meet and mate, what does it
matter if there be a few years' difference in the ages of their bodies?
Their essential youthfulness will surmount all that."
Christobel looked at him, and truly for a moment the young soul in her
leapt out to his, in glad response. Then the other side of the
question rose before her.
"Ah, but, Boy dear," she said, "the souls express themselves--their
needs, their delights, their activities--through the bodies. And
suppose one body, in the soul-union, is wearing out sooner than the
other; that is hard on the other--hard on both. Boy--my Little Boy
Blue--shall I tell you an awful secret? I suppose I sat too closely
over my books at Girton; I suppose I was not sufficiently careful about
good print, or good light. Anyway--Boy dear--I have to use glasses
when I read." She looked wistfully into his bright eyes. "You see?
Already I am beginning to grow old." Her sweet lips trembled.
In a moment he was kneeling by the arm of her chair, bending over her,
as he did on the first day; but as he did not do yesterday. Suddenly
she realized why she had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone.
He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, back and palm. Then he parted
the third finger from the rest, with his own brown ones, and held that
against his warm young lips.
She drew her hand slowly away; passed it over his hair; then let it
fall upon her lap. She could not speak; she could not move; she could
not send him away. She wanted him so--her little Boy Blue, of long ago.
"Old, my Beloved?" he said. "You--old! Never! Always
perfect--perfect to me. And why not wear glasses? Heaps of mere kids
wear glasses, and wear them all the time. Only--how alarmingly clever
you must look in spectacles, Christobel. It would terrify me now; but
by and by it will make me feel proud. I think one would expect glasses
to go with those awe-inspiring classical honours. With my barely
respectable B.A., I daren't lay claim to any outward marks of
erudition." Then, as she did not smile, but still gazed up at him,
wistfully, his look softened to still deeper tenderness: "Dear eyes,"
he murmured, "oh dear, dear eyes," and gently laid his lips on each in
turn.
"Don't," she said, with a half sob. "Ah, Boy, don't! You know you
must not kiss me."
"Kiss you!" he said, still bending over her. "Do you call that
kissing?" Then he laughed; and the joyous love in his laughter wrung
her heart. "Christobel, on the seventh day, when the gates fly open,
and the walls fall down; when the citadel surrenders; when you admit
you are my own--_then_ I shall kiss you; _then_ you will know what
kissing really means."
He bent above her. His lips were very near to hers. She closed her
eyes and waited. Her own lips trembled. She knew how fearfully it
tempted the Boy that her lips should tremble because his were near; yet
she let them tremble. She forgot to remember the past; she forgot to
consider the future. She was conscious of only one thing: that she
wanted her Little Boy Blue to teach her what kissing really meant. So
she closed her eyes and waited.
She did not hear him go; but presently she knew he was no longer there.
She opened her eyes.
The Boy had walked across the lawn, and stood looking into the golden
heart of an opening yellow rose. His back appeared very
uncompromising; very determined; very erect.
She rose and walked over to him. As she moved forward, with the
graceful dignity of motion which was always hers, her mental balance
returned.
She slipped her hand beneath his arm. "Come, Boy," she said; "let us
walk up and down, and talk. It is enervating to sit too long in the
sunshine."
He turned at once, suiting his step to hers, and they paced the lawn in
silence.
When they reached the postern gate the Boy stood still. Something in
his look suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when the sand on his
small nose could not detract from the dignity of his little face, nor
weaken its stern decision.
He took both her hands in his, and looked into her eyes.
"Christobel," he said, "I must go. I must go, because I dare not stay.
You are so wonderful this afternoon; so dear beyond expression. I know
you trust me absolutely; but this is only the third day; and I cannot
trust myself, dear. So I'm off!"
He lifted both her hands to his lips.
"May I go, my Queen?" he said.
"Yes, Boy," she answered. "Go."
And he went.
It was hard to hear the thud of the closing door. For some time she
stood waiting, just on the inside. She thought he would come back, and
she wished him to find her there, the moment he opened the door.
But the Boy--being the Boy--did not come back.
Presently she returned to her chair, in the shade of the mulberry-tree.
She lay, with closed eyes, and lived again through the afternoon, from
the moment when the Boy had said: "Hip, hip, hurrah!" There came a
time when she turned very pale, and her lips trembled, as they had done
before.
At length she rose and paced slowly up the lawn. On her face was the
quiet calm of an irrevocable decision.
"To-morrow," she said, "I must tell the Boy about the Professor."
* * * * *
In the middle of the night, Martha, being wakeful, became haunted by
the remembrance of the smoke, as it had curled from cracks and keyholes
in the kitchen. She felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink
wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the stairs to make sure the house
was not on fire. Martha's wakefulness was partly caused by the unusual
fact of a large and hard curl-paper, behind her left ear.
Miss Charteris was also awake. She was not worried by memories of
smoke, or visions of fire; and her soft hair was completely innocent of
curl-papers. But she was considering how she should tell the boy about
the Professor; and that consideration was not conducive to calm
slumber. She heard Martha go creaking down the stairs; and, as Martha
came creaking up again, she opened her door, and confronted her.
"What are you doing, Martha?" she said.
Martha, intensely conscious of her curl-paper, was about to answer with
more than her usual respectful irritability, when the eyes of the two
women--mistress and maid--met, in the light of their respective
candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in the cause of their night
vigil passed between them.
Martha smiled--a crooked smile, half ashamed to be seen smiling. When
she spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more completely than in the
daytime.
"'E went crawlin' about the kitchen," she said, in a muffled midnight
whisper; "all in 'is white flannels, puffin' smoke in every crack an'
'ole to kill the beetles. So kind 'e meant it; but I couldn't sleep
for wonderin' if the place was smokin' still. I 'ad to go down an'
see. 'Ow came you to be awake, Miss Christobel?"
"Things he said in the garden, Martha, have given me food for thought.
I began thinking them over; and sleep went."
Martha smiled again--and this time the smile came more easily. "'E
_'as_ a way of keepin' one on the go," she said; "but we'd best be
gittin' to sleep now, miss. 'E'll be at it again to-morrow, bless 'is
'eart!" And Martha, in her pink wrapper, lumbered upwards.
But the Boy, who had this disturbing effect on the women who loved him,
slept soundly himself, one arm flung high above his tumbled head. And
if the sweet mother, who perforce had had to let her dying arms slip
from about her baby-boy, almost before his little feet could carry him
across a room, saw from above the pure radiance on his lips and brow as
he slept, she must have turned to the Emerald Throne with glad
thanksgiving for the answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's prayers.
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the third day._"
* * * * *
THE FOURTH DAY
CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME
"I am exhausted," said the Boy, reaching out a long arm, and securing
his third piece of hot buttered-toast. "I am ruffled. My usual calm
mental poise is overthrown--and on the Sabbath, of all days! Every
feather I possess has been rubbed up the wrong way." He lay back in
the depths of his chair, stretched out his legs, and looked dejectedly
at Christobel.
Her quiet smile enveloped him. Her look was as a cool touch on a hot
forehead.
"Poor Little Boy Blue! I thought something was wrong. I should feel a
keener anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less obviously consoling."
"I'll jolly well never go again," said the Boy, with indignation. "Not
me!"
"Before you were born, Boy; when I went to school," said Miss
Charteris, "we were taught to say 'Not _I_.' And if you were to tell
me where you have been, on this Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to
give you more intelligent sympathy."
"I've been to a drawing-room meeting," said the Boy, "and I've heard a
woman hold forth. For an hour and a quarter, I've sat stuffed up,
breathing the atmosphere of other people's go-to-meeting clothes, and
heard a good lady go meandering on, while I had no room for my legs."
"I thought you seemed finding them extra long, Boy. Why did you go to
a drawing-room meeting?"
"I went," said the Boy, "because the dear old thing in whose house it
was held asked me to go. She used to know my mother. When I was at
Trinity she looked me up, often invited me to her charming home, gave
me excellent little dinners, followed by the kindest, nicest, most
nervous little preachments. Don't look amused, dear. I never failed
to profit. I respected her for it. She is as good and genuine as they
make 'em; and if _she_ had stood up this afternoon, with her friendly
smile, and dear shaky old voice, and given us an exposition of the
twenty-third Psalm, we should have all come away quite 'good and
happy.' Instead of which--oh, my wig!"
The Boy took an explosive bun, and put it whole into his mouth. "The
only way to manage them on Sunday," he explained, as soon as speech was
possible, "when sweeping is not the right thing. But let us hope
Mollie's papa's 'clerical brethren' won't find it out. There would
certainly be less conversation and fewer crumbs, but no fun at all."
"I don't think you need be afraid, Boy dear. Even should such a way
out of the difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to think they would
prefer the explosion, to the whole bun at a mouthful. It has a rather
startling effect, you know, until one gets used to seeing it done. I
can't quite imagine an archdeacon doing it, while standing on the
hearthrug in conversation with my brother. Now tell me what the good
lady said, which you found so trying."
"Oh, she meandered on," grumbled the Boy. "She told us all we should
have been, if we had not been what we were; and all we might be, if we
were not what we are; and all we shall be, when we are not what we are!
She implored us to consider, and weigh well, _where_ we should go, if,
by a sudden and unexpected dispensation of Providence, we ceased to be
where we then were. I jolly well knew the answer to _that_; for if
Providence had suddenly dispensated--which it didn't, for a good
three-quarters of an hour--I should have been here, _here_, HERE, as
fast as my best Sunday boots could carry me!" His brown eyes softened.
"Ah, think what '_here_' means," he said. "Think! 'Here' means _You_!"
But Miss Charteris did not wish the conversation to become too
meltingly personal.
"What else did she say, Boy?"
He consulted the mulberry leaves, then bounded in his chair. "Ha, I
have it! I kept this tit-bit for you. She used an astronomical
illustration, I haven't the least idea apropos of what, but she told us
exactly how many millions of miles the sun is from the earth; and then
she smiled upon us blandly, and said: 'Or is it billions?' Think of
that! She said: '_Or is it billions?_' in exactly the same tone of
voice as she might have said of the bonnet she had on: 'I bought it, at
a sale, for elevenpence three farthings, _or was it a shilling_?'"
"Oh, Boy, you really _are_ naughty! I never connected you with
personal sarcasm."
"Yes, but that sort of woman shouldn't," complained the Boy. "And with
half Cambridge sitting listening. 'Millions, or is it billions?' Oh
lor!"
"Poor thing!" remarked Miss Charteris. "She could not have known that
she had in the audience a person who had only just avoided the drawback
to future enterprise, of being Senior Wrangler. Had she realized that,
she would have been more careful with her figures."
"Tease away!" said the Boy. "I don't care, now I am safe here. Only I
shan't tell you any more."
"I don't want to hear any more, Boy. I always enjoy appreciations,
even of things I do not myself appreciate. But non-appreciations do
not appeal to me. If a person has meant to be effective and proved
inadequate, or tried to do good and done harm, I would rather not know
it, unless I can help to put matters right. Have some more tea, Boy;
and then I want to talk to you myself. I have something rather special
to tell you."
The Boy stood up and brought his cup to the little table. When she had
filled it, he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow on the arm of her
chair, and drank his tea there.
"I am sorry, dear," he said, presently. "I won't do it again. Perhaps
I listened wrong, because I was bored at being there at all. I say,
Christobel--it has just occurred to me--did you know my mother?"
The old garden was very still. A hush, as of the Paradise of God,
seemed suddenly to fall upon it. As the Boy asked his quiet question,
a spirit seemed to hover, between them and the green dome of mulberry
leaves above them, smoothing the Boy's tumbled hair, and touching the
noble brow of the woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, thankful
spirit--eternally remembering, and tenderly glad to be remembered. For
a few moments the silence was a silence which could not be broken. The
Boy lifted wondering eyes to the moving leaves. Christobel laid her
hand upon his, as it gripped her chair. An unseen voice seemed to
whisper to the Boy--not in the stern tones of the Church, but as an
eager, anxious, question: "Wilt thou--have--this woman--to be thy
wedded wife?" And silently the Boy replied: "Please God, I will"; and,
bending, kissed the hand resting on his.
The spell lifted. Christobel spoke.
"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her. I have often wondered whether I might tell
you. She and my mother were dear friends. I was thirteen when she
died. You were three, poor Little Boy Blue! Two things I specially
remember about your mother: the peculiar radiance of her face--a light
from within, shining out; and the fact that when she was in a room the
whole atmosphere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted. I think she
lived very near heaven, Boy; and, like Enoch, she walked straight in
one day, and came back no more. She 'was not'; for God took her."
Another long holy silence. The mulberry leaves were still. Then the
Boy said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me heaps more--details--lots
of little things about her? No one ever has. But I seem almost to
begin to remember her, when you talk of her. Meanwhile, may I show you
this?"
He drew from the inner pocket of his coat, a small well-worn
pocket-Bible. Opening it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss
Charteris.
"It was hers," he said.
She bent over it and read the inscription:
_M. A. Chelsea_
"_Through faith and patience inherit the promises._"
Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a hand that trembled:
_To my Baby Boy from his Mother_
"_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not._"
She looked at it in silence. How much had this book meant during all
these years, to the "Baby Boy"? Had the book in his pocket, and the
prayers hovering about him, something to do with the fact that he was
still--just Little Boy Blue?
The Boy had taken a fountain pen from his pocket, and was shaking it
vigorously over the grass.
Now he passed it to her.
"Write your dear name beneath," he said.
Infinitely touched, she made no comment, raised no question. She took
the pen, and wrote just "_Christobel_."
* * * * *
"_And the evening and the morning were the fourth day._"
* * * * *
THE FIFTH DAY
GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL
"Now, Sir Boy," said Miss Charteris with decision, "this is your fifth
day. Our time is nearly over. You have done most of the talking. You
have had things entirely your own way. What? ... Oh, well, _almost_
entirely your own way. I have allowed you to play your Old Testament
game to your heart's content. With commendable adaptability, _I_ have
been Jericho, and _you_ have marched round. I have been Jericho in my
own garden, and have refreshed the invading army with hot
buttered-toast and explosive buns. Now it is my turn to take the
initiative. Jenkins having removed the tea, and it being too hot for
tennis, I am going to ask you to sit still, while I explain to you
quite clearly why I must send you away at the close of the seventh day."
She tried to hide her extreme trepidation beneath a tone of gay banter.
She hoped it did not sound as forced to him as it did to herself. The
Boy's clear eyes were fixed upon her. Had he noticed the trembling of
her hands, before she steadied them by laying hold of the arms of her
chair?
"So now for a serious talk, if you please, Sir Boy."
"Excuse me, dear," said the Boy, "the Israelites were not allowed to
parley."
"You need not parley," said Miss Charteris; "you are requested merely
to listen. You may smoke if you like. I understand cigarette smoke is
fatal to black-beetles. Possibly it has the same effect on garden
insects. Russell tells me we are overrun by snails. Smoke, Boy, if
you like."
"Dear," said the Boy, his head thrown back, his hands thrust deep into
his coat pockets, "I never have the smallest desire to smoke in your
presence. I should feel as if I were smoking in church."
"Oh, you dear amazing altogether absurd boy! Don't look at me like
that. And don't say such unexpected things, or I shall be unable to
parley satisfactorily."
"When _I_ went to school," remarked the Boy, "and you were an engaging
little girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: 'Do not look at me
_thus_'; at least, masters frequently appeared to think it necessary to
make that remark to me. I can't imagine why; because they were not
specially worth looking at; excepting that a very large person, in a
very angry condition, always presented a spectacle of extreme interest
to my juvenile mind. It was so fascinating to watch and see what they
would do next. They were like those wooden monkeys and bears you buy
in Swiss shops, don't you know? You pull a hanging string, and their
legs and arms jump about unexpectedly. One always felt a really angry
grown-up was a mere puppet. Unseen fingers were pulling the string;
and it was funny to watch. There was an exciting element of danger,
too; because sometimes a hand jerked up and boxed your ears."
"Little Boy Blue," she said, "it must have been quite impossible ever
to be _mildly_ angry with you. Either one would have waxed impotently
furious; or one would have wanted to--to hug you!"
The Boy leapt up.
"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or I shall send you away. And I do
not wish to do that; because I have quite made up my mind to tell you
to-day, a thing which I suppose I ought to have told you long ago; and
I tried to do so, Boy; but somehow you always made it impossible. I
want to--to tell you about--the Professor." She paused.
It was so very difficult. It was like rolling a heavy stone up a steep
hill. And the Boy made no attempt to help her. He lay back with an
exaggerated display of resignation. He looked at her with sleepy,
amused eyes. And he asked no questions. The army of Israel obviously
declined to parley.
"I have long felt I ought to tell you about the Professor," continued
Miss Charteris.
The Boy sighed. "I think I jolly well know all there is to know about
professors," he said.
"Not about this one," explained Miss Charteris. "He is _my_ Professor."
"Oh, if he's _your_ Professor," said the Boy, sitting up, "of course I
am interested. But I am not sure that I approve of you having a tame
Professor; especially when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves them in
the hall."
"I am afraid nobody will ask whether you approve or not, Little Boy
Blue. The Professor has been a great friend of mine during nearly
twelve years; and I think I am possibly--in fact, very probably--going
to marry the Professor."
"Really?" said the Boy. "May I ask when he proposed?"
"He has not proposed, Boy."
The Boy produced his pocket-book, took out a calendar, and studied it
attentively.
"Then I'm afraid you will have some time to wait," he said. "It will
not be leap year again until 1912."