It is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most
stolid. It may be contended, rather, that this (somewhat minor bard)
in almost every case survives, and is the spice of life to his
possessor.—R. L. S.
Now that his first Aventure was an accomplished fact, and that he was
writing it out for the Meeting, Paul carried about with him a kind of
secret joy. At last he had found an audience, and an audience is
unquestionably a very profound need of every human heart. Nixie was
helping him to expression.
‘I’ll write them such an Aventure out of that Wind-Vision,’ he
exclaimed, ‘that they’ll fairly shiver with delight. And if _they_
shiver, why shouldn’t all the children in the world shiver too?’
He no longer made the mistake of thinking it trivial; if he could find
an audience of children all about the world, children known or unknown,
to whom he could show his little gallery of pictures, what could be more
reasonable or delightful? What could be more useful and worth doing than
to show the adventuring mind some meaning in all the beauty that filled
his heart? And the Wind-Vision might be a small—a very small, beginning.
It might be the first of a series of modern fairy tales. The idea
thrilled him with pleasure. ‘A safety-valve at last!’ he cried. ‘An
audience that won’t laugh!’
For, in reality, there was also a queer motherly quality in him which he
had always tried more or less successfully to hide, and of which,
perhaps, he was secretly half ashamed—a feeling that made him long to
give of his strength and sympathy to all that was helpless, weary,
immature.
He went about the house like a new man, for in proportion as he allowed
his imagination to use its wings, life became extraordinarily alive. He
sang, and the world sang with him. Everything turned up little smiling
faces to him, whispering fairy contributions to his tale.
‘The more I give out, the more I get in,’ he laughed. ‘I declare it’s
quite wonderful,’ as though he had really discovered a new truth all for
himself. New forces began to course through his veins like fire. As in a
great cistern tapped for the first time, this new outlet produced other
little cross-currents everywhere throughout his being. Paul began to
find a new confidence. Another stone had shifted in the fabric of his
soul. He moved one stage nearer to the final pattern that it had been
intended from the beginning of time he should assume.
A world within a world began to grow up in the old grey house under the
hill, one consisting of Nixie and her troupe, with Paul trailing heavily
in the rear, very eager; and the other, of the grown-up members of the
household, with Mlle. Fleury belonging to neither, yet in a sense
belonging to both. The cats and animals again were in the former—an
inner division of it, so that it was like a series of Chinese boxes,
each fitting within the next in size.
And this admission of Paul into the innermost circle produced a change
in the household, as well as in himself. After all, the children had not
betrayed him; they had only divined his secret and put him right with
himself. But this was everything; and who is there with a vestige of
youth in his spirit that will not understand the cause of his mysterious
exhilaration?
Outwardly, of course, no definite change was visible in the doings of
the little household. The children said little; they made no direct
reference to his conversion; but the change, though not easily
described, was felt by all. Paul recognised it in every fibre of his
being. Every one, he noticed, understood by some strange freemasonry
that he had been initiated, for every one, he fancied, treated him a
little differently. It was natural that the children should give signs
of increased admiration and affection for their huge new member, but
there was no obvious reason why his sister, and the servants, and the
very animals into the bargain, should regard him with a strain of
something that hesitated between tolerance and tenderness.
If truth were told, they probably did nothing of the sort; it was his
own point of view that had changed. His imagination was responsible for
the rest; yet he felt as though he had been caught into the heart of a
great conspiracy, and the silent, unobtrusive way every one played his,
her, or its part contrived to make him think it was all very real
indeed.
The cats, furry and tender magicians that they are, perhaps interpreted
the change more skilfully and easily than any one else. Without the
least fuss or ceremony they made him instantly free of their world, and
the way their protection and encouragement were extended to him in a
hundred gentle ways gave him an extraordinarily vivid impression that
they, too, had their plans and conferences just as much as the children
had. They made everything seem alive and intelligent, from the bushes
where they hunted to the furniture where they slept. They brought the
whole world, animate and inanimate, into his scheme of existence.
Everything had life, though not the same degree of life. It was all very
subtle and wonderful. He, and the children, and the cats, all had
imagination according to their kind and degree, and all equally used it
to make the world haunted and splendid.
Formerly, for instance, he had often surprised Mrs. Tompkyns going about
in the passages on secret business of her own, perhaps not altogether
good, yet looking up with an _assumption_ of innocence that made it
quite impossible to chide or interfere. (It was, of course, only an
assumption of innocence. A cat’s eyes are too intent and purposeful for
genuine innocence; they are a mask, a concealment of a thousand plans.)
But now, when he met her, she at once stopped and sent her tail aloft by
way of signal, and came to rub against his legs. Her eyes smiled—that
pregnant, significant smile of the feline, shown by mere blinking of the
lids—and she walked slowly by his side with arched back, as an
invitation that he might—nay, that he should—accompany her.
On her great, dark journeys he might not of course yet go, but on the
smaller, less important expeditions he was welcome, and she showed it
plainly every time they met. He was led politely to numerous cupboards,
corners, attics, and cellars, whose existence he had not hitherto
suspected. There were wonderful and terrible places among the
book-shelves and under massive pieces of furniture which she showed to
him when no one was about; and she further taught him how to sit and
stare for long periods until out of vacancy there issued a series of
fascinating figures and scenes of strange loveliness. And he, laughing,
obeyed.
All this, and much else besides, they taught him cleverly.
Some of them, too, came to visit him in his own quarters. They came into
his study, and into his bedroom, and one of them—that black,
thick-haired fellow called Smoke—the one with the ghostly eyes and very
furry trousers—even took to tapping at his door late at night (by
standing on tiptoe he could just reach the knob), and thus established
the right to sleep on the sofa or even to curl up on the foot of the
bed.
And all that the kittens, the puppies, and the out-of-door animals did
to teach him as an equal is better left untold, since this is a story
and not a work on natural history.
Mlle. Fleury, the little French governess, alone seemed curiously out of
the picture. She made difficulties here and there, though not
insuperable ones. The fact was, he saw, that she was not properly in
either of the two worlds. She wanted to be in both at once, but, from
the very nature of her position, succeeded in getting into neither; and
to fall between two worlds is far more perplexing than to fall between
two stools. Paul made allowances for her just as he might have made
allowances for an over-trained animal that had learned too many
human-taught tricks to make its presence quite acceptable to its own
four-footed circle. The charming little person—he, at least, always
thought her voice and her manners and her grace charming after a life
where these were unknown—had to justify herself to the grown-up world
where his sister belonged, as well as to the world of the children whom
she taught. And, consequently, she was often compelled to scold when,
perhaps, her soul cried out that she should bless.
His heart always hammered, if ever so slightly, when he made his way, as
he now did more and more frequently, to the schoolroom or the nursery.
Schoolroom-tea became a pleasure of almost irresistible attractions, and
when it was over and the governess was legitimately out of the way,
Nixie sometimes had a trick of announcing a Regular Meeting to which
Paul was called upon to read out his latest ‘Aventure.’
‘Hulloa! Having tea, are you?’ he exclaimed, looking in at the door one
afternoon shortly after the wind episode. This feigned surprise, which
deceived nobody, he felt was admirable. It was exactly the way Mrs.
Tompkyns did it.
‘Come in, Uncle Paul. _Do_ stay. You _must_ stay,’ came the chorus,
while Mlle. Fleury half smiled, half frowned at him across the table.
‘Here’s just the stodgy kind of cake you like, with jam _and_ honey!’
‘Well,’ he said hesitatingly, as though he scorned such things, while
Mademoiselle poured out a cup, and the children piled up a plate for
him.
He stayed, as it were, by chance, and a minute later was as earnestly
engaged with the cake and tea as if he had come with that special
purpose.
‘It’s all very well done,’ was his secret thought. ‘It’s exactly the way
Mrs. Tompkyns manages all her most important affairs.’
‘Nous avons réunion après,’ Jonah informed the governess presently with
a very grave face. The young woman glanced interrogatively at Paul.
‘Oui, oui,’ he said in his Canadian French, ‘c’est vrai. Réunion
régulaire.’
‘Mais qu’elle idée, donc!’
‘Il est le président,’ said Toby indignantly, pointing with a jam
sandwich.
‘Voilá vous êtes!’ he exclaimed. ‘There you are! Je suis le président!’
and he helped himself to more cake as though by accident.
For five seconds Mlle. Fleury kept her face. Then, in spite of herself,
her lips parted and a row of white teeth appeared.
‘Meester Reevairs, you spoil them,’ she said, ‘and I approve it not.
Mais, voyons donc! Quelles maniéres!’ she added as Sambo and Pouf passed
from Toby’s lap on to the table and began to sniff at the water
cress.... ‘Non, ça c’est _trop_ fort!’ She leaned across to smack them
back into propriety.
‘Abominable,’ Paul cried, ‘abominable tout à fait.’
‘Alwaze when you come such things ’appen.’
‘Pas mon faute,’ he said, helping to catch Pouf.
‘They are deeficult enough without that you make them more,’ she said.
‘Uncle Paul doesn’t know his genders,’ cried Jonah; ‘hooray!’
‘Ma faute,’ he corrected himself, pronouncing it ‘fote.’
Then Toby, struggling with Smoke, whose nose she was trying to force
into a saucer of milk which he did not want, upset the saucer all over
her dress and the table, splashing one and all. Jonah sprang up and
knocked his chair over backwards in the excitement. Mrs. Tompkyns,
wakening from her sleep upon the piano stool, leaped on to the notes of
the open keyboard with a horrible crash. A pandemonium reigned, all
talking, laughing, shouting at once, and the governess scolding. Then
Paul trod on a kitten’s tail under the table and extraordinary shrieks
were heard, whereupon Jonah, stooping to discover their cause, bumped
his head and began to cry. Moving forward to comfort him, Paul’s sleeve
caught in the spout of the tea-pot and it fell with a clatter among the
cups and plates, sending the sugar-tongs spinning into the air, and
knocking the milk-jug sideways so that a white sea flooded the whole
tray and splashed up with white spots on to Paul’s cheeks.
The cumulative effect of these disasters reached a culminating point,
and a sudden hush fell upon the room. The children looked a trifle
scared. Paul, with milk drops trickling down his nose, blushed and
looked solemn. Very guilty and awkward he felt. Mlle. Fleury in fluent,
rattling French explained her view of the situation, at first, however,
without effect. At such moments mere sound and fury are vain; subtle,
latent influences of the personality alone can calm a panic, and these
the little person did not, of course, possess.
To Paul the whole picture appeared in very vivid detail. With the
simplicity of the child and the larger vision of the man he perceived
how closely tears and laughter moved before them; and it really pained
him to see her confused and rather helpless amid all the debris. She was
pretty, slim, and graceful; futile anger did not sit well upon her.
There she stood, little more than a girl herself, staring at him for a
moment speechless, the dainty ruffles of her neat grey dress sticking up
about her pretty throat, he thought, like the bristles of an enraged
kitten. The hair, too, by her ears and neck suddenly seemed to project
untidily and increased the effect. The sunlight from the window behind
her spread through it, making it cloud-like.
‘C’est tout mon—ma faute,’ he said, stretching out both hands
impulsively, ‘tout!’ in his villainous Quebec French. ‘Scold _me_ first,
please.’
There was milk on his left eyebrow, and a crumb of cake in his beard as
well. The governess stared at him, her eyes still blazing ominously. Her
lips quivered. Then, fortunately, she laughed; no one really could have
done otherwise. And that laugh saved the situation. The children, who
had been standing motionless as statues awaiting their doom, sprang
again into life. In a trice the milk had been mopped up, the tongs
replaced, and the tea-pot put to bed under its ornamented cosy.
‘I forgeeve—this time,’ she said. ‘But you are vairy troublesome.’
In future, none the less, she forgave always; her hostility, never quite
sure of itself, vanished from that moment.
‘Blue Summer’ouse,’ whispered Jonah in his ear, ‘and bring your
Wind-Vision to read to us at the Meeting.’
‘But not too much Wind-Vision, please, Meester Reevairs,’ she said,
overhearing the whisper. ‘They think of nothing else.’
Paul stared at her. The thought in his mind was that she ought to come
too, only he knew the children would not approve.
‘Then I must moderate their enthusiasm,’ he said gravely at last.
Mlle. Fleury laughed in his face. ‘_You_ are worst of ze lot, I
know—worst of all. Your Aventures and plays trouble all their
lesson-time.’
‘It is my education,’ he said, as Jonah tugged at his coat from behind
to get him out of the room. ‘You educate _them_; they educate _me_; I
improve slowly. Voilá!’
‘But vairy slowly, n’est-ce pas? And you make up all such _expériences_
like ze Wind-Vision to fill their minds.’
Nixie had told him that all their aventures filtered through to her, and
that she kept a special _cahier_ in her own room, where she wrote them
all out in her own language. ‘Another soul, perhaps, looking about for a
safety-valve,’ he thought swiftly.
‘But, Mademoiselle, why not translate them into French? That’s a good
idea, and excellent practice for them.’
‘Per’aps,’ she laughed, ‘per’aps we do that. C’est une idée au moins.’
She wanted so much, it was clear, to come into their happy little world
of imagination and adventure. He realised suddenly how lonely her life
might be in such a household.
‘You write them, and I will correct them for you,’ he said.
‘Come on, _do_ come on, Uncle,’ cried the voices urgently from the door.
The children were already in the passage. The little governess looked
rather wistfully after them, and on a sudden impulse Paul did a thing he
had never before done in his life. He took her hand and kissed the tips
of her fingers, but so boyishly, and with such simple politeness and
sincerity that there was hardly more in the act than if Jonah had done
the same to Nixie in an aventure of another sort.
‘Au revoir then,’ he said laughingly; ‘chacun a son devoir, don’t they?
And now I go to do mine.’
His sentence was somewhat mixed. He just had time to notice the pretty
blush of confusion that spread over her face, and to hear her laugh ‘You
are weecked children—vairy weecked—and you, Meester Reevairs, the
biggest of all,’ when Nixie and Jonah had him by the hand and they were
off out of the house to their Meeting in the Blue Summer-house.
Thus Mlle. Fleury ceased to be a difficulty in the household so far as
his proceedings with the children were concerned. On the contrary, she
became a helpful force, and often acted as a sort of sentry, or outpost,
between one world and the other. Herself, she never came into their own
private region, but hovered only along the borders of it. For though
little over twenty years of age, she was French, and she understood
exactly how much interest she might allow herself to take in the Society
without endangering her own position,—or theirs—or his. She knew that
she could not enter their world freely and still maintain authority in
the other; but, meanwhile, she managed Paul precisely as though he were
one of her own charges, and saw to it that he did nothing which could
really be injurious to the responsibilities for which she was
answerable.
Thus Paul, thundering along with his belated youth, enjoyed himself more
and more, while he enjoyed, also learned, marked, and read.