"You will give me my answer after you have thought it all over."
"Certainly you shall have an answer: and in the meantime my thanks; or
if there is any word more grateful than thanks,--more than words can
say----"
He turned to look back as he closed the little gate for foot passengers
at the end of the bare road which was called the avenue, and took off
his hat as she waved her hand to him. Then she turned back again towards
the house. It was a ruddy October afternoon, the sun going down in gold
and crimson, with already the deeper, more gorgeous colours of winter
in the sky. Geoff was hanging upon her arm, clinging to it with both of
his, walking in her very shadow, as was his wont.
"Why do you thank Theo Warrender like that? What has he done for us?"
asked Geoff.
"I don't think, dear, that you should talk of him in that familiar way.
Theo! He is old enough to be"--here she paused for a moment, not pleased
with the suggestion, and then added--"he might be your elder brother, at
least."
"Not unless I had another mamma," said Geoff. "Theo is about as old as
you."
"Oh no; much younger than I am. Do you remember you once said you would
like him for your tutor, Geoff?"
"I don't think I should now," said the little boy. "That was because he
was so clever. I begin to think now, perhaps it would be better not to
have such a clever one. When you are very small you don't understand."
"You are not very big still, my dear boy."
"No, but things come different." Geoff had a way of twisting his little
face, as he made an observation wiser than usual, which amused the world
in general, but not his mother. He was not a pretty boy; there was nothing
in his appearance to satisfy a pretty young woman in her ambition and
vanity for her child; but his little face was turned into a grotesque by
those queer contortions. She put her hand upon his arm hastily.
"Don't make such faces, Geoff. Why should you twist your features out of
all shape, with every word you say?"
This was perhaps too strong, and Geoff felt it so. "I don't want to make
faces," he said, "but what else have you got to do it with when you are
thinking? I'll tell you how I have found out that Theo Warrender would
be too clever. That day when he showed me how to do my Latin"--The boy
here paused, with a curious elfish gravity. "It was a long time ago."
"I remember, dear."
"Well, you were all talking, saying little speeches, as people do, you
know, that come to pay visits; and he was out of it, so he talked to me.
But now, when he comes, he makes the speeches, and you answer him, and
you two run on till I think you never will be done; and it is I who am
out of it," said Geoff, with great gravity, though without offence. His
mother pressed his clinging arms to her side, with a sudden exclamation.
"My own boy, _you_ feel out of it when I am talking!--you, my only child,
my only comfort!" Lady Markland held him close to her, and quick tears
sprang to her eyes.
"It is nothing to make any fuss about, mamma. Sometimes I like it. I
listen, and you are very funny when you talk. That is, not you, but Theo
Warrender. He talks as if nothing was right but only as you thought. I
suppose he thinks you are very clever." Geoff paused for a moment, and
gave her an investigating look; and then added in a less assured tone,
"And I suppose you are clever, ain't you, mamma?"
She was moved to a laugh, in the midst of other feelings. "Not that I
know of, Geoff. I was never thought to be clever, so far as I am aware."
"You are, though," he said, "when you don't make speeches as all the
people do. I think you are cleverer with Theo than with anybody. What
was he talking of to-day, for instance, when I was away?"
The question was put so suddenly that she was almost embarrassed by it.
"He was saying that he wished to be your tutor, Geoff. It was very kind.
To save me from parting with you,--which I think would be more than I
could bear,--and to save me the trouble of having a--strange gentleman
in the house."
"But he would be a strange gentleman, just the same."
"He is a friend, the kindest friend; and then he would not be in the
house. He wants to come over every day, just for your lessons. But it is
too much,--it is too much to accept from any one," she said suddenly,
struck for the first time with this view.
"That would be very jolly!" cried Geoff. "I should like that: if he came
only for my lessons, and then went away: and afterwards there would be
only you and me,--nobody but you and me, just as we used to be all the
time, before----"
"Oh, don't say that! We were not always alone--before; there was----"
"I know," said the little boy; but after a moment's pause he resumed:
"You know that generally we were alone, mamma. I like that,--you and me,
and no one else. Yes, let Theo come and teach me; and then when lessons
are over go away."
Lady Markland laughed. "You must think it a great privilege to teach
you, Geoff. He is to be allowed that favour,--to do all he can for
us,--and as soon as he has done it to be turned from the door. That
would be kind on his part, but rather churlish on ours, don't you
think?"
"Oh," said the boy, "then he does it for something? You said tutors
worked for money, and that Theo was well off, and did not want money.
I see; then he wants something else. Is no one kind just for kindness?
Must everybody be paid?"
"In kindness, surely, Geoff."
The boy looked at her with his little twinkling eyes and a twist in
the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he did not understand the instinctive
suspicion in his mind,--indeed, there is no possibility that he could
understand it; but it moved him with a keen premonition of danger. "I
should think it was easiest to pay in money," he said, with precocious
wisdom. "How could you and me be kind?"
They strolled homeward during this conversation along the bare avenue,
through the lines of faint, weak-kneed young trees which had been planted
with a far-off hope of some time, twenty years hence, filling up the
gaps. Little Geoff, with all the chaos of ideas in his mind, a child
unlike other children, just saved from the grave of his race, the last
little feeble representative of a house which had been strong and famous
in its day, was not unlike one of the feeble saplings which rustled and
swayed in the wailing autumn wind. The sunshine slanted upon the two
figures, throwing long shadows across the wet grass and copse, which
only differed from the long slim shadows of the young trees in their
steadiness as they moved along by their own impulse, instead of blowing
about at the mercy of the breeze, like the heirs of the old oaks and
beeches. The scene had a mixture of desolation and hopefulness which was
very characteristic: everything young and new, where all should have
been mature and well established, if not old--yet in the mere fact of
youth conveying a promise of victory against the winds and chills of
winter, against the storms and tribulations of life. If they survived,
the old avenue would rustle again with verdant wealth, the old house
would raise up its head; but for the present, what was wanted was warmth
and shelter and protection, tempered winds and sunshine and friends,
protection from the cold north and blighting east. The little human
sapling was the one most difficult to guard: and who can tell before
the event which alternative is best? Happily no serious question keeps
possession long of a child's brain, and the evening passed as all their
quiet evenings passed, without any further discussion. But Geoff's
question echoed in Lady Markland's mind after the child had forgotten
it and was fast asleep; "How could you and me be kind?" How was she to
repay Theo for a devotion so great? It was like the devotion of a knight
in the times of chivalry. She had said both to herself and others, many
times, how kind he was, how could she ever repay him?--like a brother.
But it was true, after all, that everybody had to be paid. How could
she reward Theo for his devotion? What could she do for him? There was
nothing within her power; she had no influence to help him on, no social
advantage, no responsive favour of any kind. He was better off, better
educated, more befriended, more surrounded, than she was. He wanted
nothing from her. How could she show her gratitude, even? "How can you
and me be kind?" she said to herself, with a forlorn pride that Geoff
always saw the heart of the difficulty. But this did not help her to any
reply.
Next morning Mr. Longstaffe, the "man of business" who had the affairs
of half the county in his hands, came to Markland to see her, and any
idea there might have been of attending to Geoff's lessons had to be
laid aside. He had to be dismissed even from his seat in the window,
where he superintended, on ordinary occasions, everything that went on.
With an internal reflection how it would have been had Theo begun his
labours, Lady Markland sent the boy away. "Take care of yourself, Geoff.
If you go out, take Bowen with you, or old Black." Bowen was the nurse,
whom Geoff felt himself to have long outgrown, and Black was an old
groom, whose company was dear to Geoff on ordinary occasions, but for
whom he felt no particular inclination to-day. The little boy went out
and took a meditative walk, his thoughts returning to the question which
had been put before them last night: Theo Warrender for his tutor, to
come daily for his lessons, and then to go away. With the unconscious
egotism of a child, Geoff would have received this as perfectly
reasonable, a most satisfactory arrangement; and indeed it appeared
to him, on thinking it over, that his mother's suggestion of a payment
in kindness was on the whole somewhat absurd. "Kindness!" Geoff said
to himself, "who's going to be unkind?" He proceeded to consider the
subject at large. After a time he slapped his little thigh, as Black did
when he was excited. "I'll tell you!" he cried to himself. "I'll offer
to go over _there_ half the time." He paused at this, for, besides the
practical proof of kindness to Theo which he felt would thus be given,
a sudden pleasure seized upon and expanded his little soul. To go over
_there_: to save Theo the trouble, and for himself to burst forth
into a new world, a universe of sensations unknown,--into freedom,
independence, self-guidance! An exhilaration and sentiment hitherto
unexperienced went up in fumes to Geoff's brain. It was scarcely noon,
a still and beautiful October day; the sky as blue as summer, the
trees all russet and gold, the air with just enough chill in it to
make breathing a keen delight. Why not now? These words, Geoff said
afterwards, came into his mind as if somebody had said them: and the
boldness and wildness of daring suggested ran through his little veins
like wine. He rather flew than ran to the stables, which were sadly
shorn of their ancient splendour, two horses and Geoff's pony being all
that remained. "Saddle me my pony, Black!" the boy cried. "Yes, Master
Geoff" (the old man would not say my lord); "but the cob's lame, and I
can't take Mirah without my lady's leave." "Never mind. I'm going such a
little way. Mamma never says anything when I go a little way." Was it a
lie, or only a fib? This question of casuistry gave Geoff great trouble
afterwards; for (he said to himself) it _was_ only a little way, nothing
at all, though mamma of course thought otherwise, and was deceived.
"You'll be very careful, Master Geoff," said the old man. Black had his
own reasons for not desiring to go out that day, which made him all the
more willing to give credence to Geoff's promise; and the boy had never
shown any signs of foolhardiness to make his attendants nervous. With an
exultation which he could scarcely restrain, Geoff found himself on his
pony, unrestrained and alone. When he got beyond the park, from which
he made his exit by a gate which the servants used, and which generally
stood open in the morning, a sort of awful delight was in his little
soul. He was on the threshold of the world. The green lane before him
led into the unknown. He paused a moment, rising in his stirrups, and
looked back at the house standing bare upon the ridge, with all its
windows twinkling in the sun. His little heart beat, as the heart beats
when we leave all we love behind us, yet rose with a thrill and throb of
anticipation as he faced again towards the outer universe. Not nine till
Christmas, and yet already daring adventure and fortune! This was the
consciousness that rose in the little fellow's breast, and made his
small gray eyes dance with light, as he turned his pony's head towards
the Warren, which meant into the world.
Geoff was very confident that he knew the road. He had gone several
times with his mother in the carriage direct to the Warren; one time in
particular, when the route was new to him,--when he went clinging to
her, as he always did, but she, frozen into silence, making no reply to
him, leant back in Mrs. Warrender's little brougham, like a mother made
of marble. Very clearly the child remembered that dreadful drive. But
others more cheerful had occurred since. He had got to know the Warren,
which was so different from Markland, with those deep old shadowing
trees, and everything so small and well filled. And they had all been
kind to Geoff. He liked the ladies more than he liked Theo. On the
whole, Geoff found ladies more agreeable than men. His father had not
left a very tender image in his mind, whereas his mother was all the
world to the invalid boy. It occurred to him that he would get a very
warm reception at the Warren, whither he meant to go to convey to Theo
his gracious acceptance of the offered lessons; and this gave brightness
and pleasure to the expedition. But the real object of it was to show
kindness which his mother had suggested as the only payment Theo would
accept. Geoff in his generosity was going to give the price beforehand,
to intimate his intention of saving Theo trouble by coming to the Warren
every second day, and generally to propitiate and please his new tutor.
It was a very important expedition, and nobody after this could say that
Theo's kindness was not repaid.
The pony trotted along very steadily so long as Geoff remembered to keep
his attention to it; and it cantered a little, surprising Geoff, when
it found the turf under its hoofs, along another stretch of sunny road
which Geoff turned into without remembering it, with a thrill of fresh
delight in its novelty and in the long vista under its over-arching
boughs. Then he went through the little wood, making the pony walk, his
little heart all melting with the sweetness and shade as he picked his
way across the brook, in which the leaves lay as in Valombrosa. The pony
liked that gentle pace; perhaps he had thoughts of his own which were as
urgent, yet as idle, as Geoff's, and like the boy felt the delight of
the unknown. Anyhow, he continued to walk along the level stretch of
road beyond the wood; and Geoff, upon his back, made no remonstrance.
The boy began to get a little confused by the turnings, by the landscape,
by the effect of the wide atmosphere and the wind blowing in his face.
He forgot almost that he was Geoff. He was a little boy on his way to
fairyland, riding on and on in a dream.