MONTAGUE FRANCIS DE VERE
"I expect there's a lovely view just round that bend at the top,"
Nancy said, when they arrived at the road. "Should we take just a
peep? It won't take five minutes."
Billy hesitated. When he had made up his mind to go to a certain
place he preferred to make steadily for it and not wander off into
side roads, but as Mavis added her entreaties to Nancy's he gave way
reluctantly.
Nancy mounted Modestine and the little procession set off up the
hill. To the left, they caught sight of the chimney-pots of a house,
but that was all, until they reached the bend. And then such a view.
A long stretch of the Gleam was visible, and the hills, rising out of
a mist so faint that it seemed like a veil of light, were more
alluring than ever. On their own home side of the river, far, far
away beyond the mouth, were mountains peeping out from a dense blue
curtain.
Mavis, the artist of the family, was enraptured by the blueness.
"It's like that picture we saw once--you 'member--some little girls
with lots of autumn leaves heaped up, and a basket, and the blueness
all behind them!" she cried excitedly.
"Yes," Nancy responded, "an' it was so blue I thought it couldn't be
real. Now we _know_ it's all right."
They both sighed with delight and satisfaction.
"I say, do look at that boy!" Billy interrupted. "See, over there in
the garden!"
The view had entirely absorbed Nancy and Mavis, but they turned with
ready interest to learn the cause of that in Billy's voice that
promised something worth while.
Standing back from the road they saw the primmest house imaginable,
with a garden to correspond. Not a weed was to be seen; not a plant
or bush or tree grew there that had any inclination to riot or
sprawl. There were neat little rose bushes, but no ramblers; there
were stocks, and geraniums, and lobelias in prim little lozenge beds,
but no pretty sprawling clarkia or love-in-a-mist or joyous
Californian poppy. A neat little laurel hedge divided the flowers
from the kitchen garden, where again everything was
congruous--everything, that is, except the boy.
He was standing by a bed of beetroots, leaning on a hoe, with his
profile towards them. They could not see his eyes, but his face, and
indeed, his whole attitude, expressed solemn dejection. Yet that was
not the reason why he seemed so utterly out of place in the picture.
"Isn't he dirty!" whispered Mavis, in disgust, for she had a horror
of dirt, as Billy knew to his cost. "An' untidy!"
His hands, if he was supposed to be hoeing, might, of course, have
been allowed a thin coating of earth, but there was earth on his
face, earth on his knees, earth on his clothes. He was about Billy's
age, and was wearing a grey flannel suit, grey felt hat, and grey
stockings, all very much like Billy's, but, although Billy had no
special reputation for either cleanliness or tidiness, he was not to
be compared with the little object in the garden whose stockings were
slopping over his boots, and whose hat was thrust defiantly at the
back of his head.
The children stared in puzzled wonderment. There was something about
him that suggested he was not just the gardener's boy, yet what
possible connection could such a ragamuffin have with so prim a place?
At this moment the boy dived into his pocket and pulled out a
handkerchief that was the colour of his hands.
"Isn't he awful?" Mavis whispered, in horror.
"Yes, but I don't believe he's very happy," Nancy replied. "He looks
so sad."
Billy giggled.
"'Spect he doesn't like hoeing!" he said. "_I_ don't!"
Nancy shook her head.
"No, it's not that kind of sadness. I know how _you_ look when you
have to do weeding; his is more than that--it's _all_ of him that's
unhappy."
Just then the boy looked up and met Billy's eye. Neither boy moved
or spoke for a moment, then suddenly the young ragamuffin jerked his
hat over his eyes, thrust forward his chin, assumed a "Bill Sikes"
expression, and lurched defiantly towards the palings.
"What cher want?" he growled, in a voice that sounded volcanic.
"Nothing!" Billy replied, with a grin. "I say, are you fed-up with
hoeing?"
The boy hesitated, a little surprised at Billy's friendly tone.
"_You'd_ be," he rumbled, "if you hoed as much as I do. It's weed,
weed, weed, and hoe, hoe, hoe, morning, noon, and night. A boy has
no play here," he added bitterly. "_She_ says a boy like me needs
discipline--an' this is what she gives me!" He paused and looked
thoughtful. "'Tisn't _his_ fault," he added, as though talking to
himself, "he's sorry for me, but he says it's silly to mind doin' it.
Only----" and here his voice grew particularly volcanic, "I wish he
wouldn't always be talkin' about courage."
"Courage?" Billy enquired, wondering what it had to do with hoeing.
"Yes. He said there was a boy in a book who heard a man say,
''Tisn't life that matters, but the courage you bring to it.' _I_
dunno what he wants to keep talkin' about it for, and I dunno what
it's got to do with weeding." He paused. "Courage!" he added
darkly, "guess I know what courage is, as I'd show any boy! I don't
need to weed to know _that_!"
Now, hitherto, he had not looked beyond Billy, but, at that moment,
his eye fell on Mavis, who was standing with her hand on Modestine's
bridle. He stood as though spellbound, with wonder in his big,
solemn eyes.
"Don't stare!" Mavis said, in a reproving voice, "it's rude!"
"I'm only just lookin' at you!" he replied, in a voice that was
surprisingly humble. "You're very pretty," he added. Silence again.
"Would you like an apple? There's an early tree over there," he
blurted out.
Mavis looked at his grubby hands.
"No, thank you," she replied promptly. Then fearing that perhaps she
had hurt him, "What is your name?" she asked in a kind, fat little
voice.
"Montague Francis de Vere," he replied, with a defiant eye on Billy.
"Once," he added, reminiscently, "there was a boy who said I'd better
add Plantagenet while I was about it. Montague Francis Plantagenet
de Vere he called me, just that once, but _not again_!" His eye was
still fixed firmly on Billy, who, instead of quailing as apparently
he was intended to, merely grinned pleasantly. The ragamuffin leaned
over the palings. "And there was another boy," he continued, "who
called me Monty--and he was sorry afterwards!"
"Why?" asked Mavis innocently.
"'Cos I _made_ him sorry!" the boy growled.
"Oh, but if I knew you I should call you Monty," Mavis replied.
"Well, _you_ can--sometimes!" Montague growled. "An' so, perhaps,
can _she_," with a jerk of his head towards Nancy. "But anybody
else," here he again fixed Billy with a defiant eye, "anybody else
has to call me Montague or Mont, else they'll be sorry."
Billy chuckled.
"Well, Mont's all right," he said. "I'll call you that."
"What does your mother call you?" asked Nancy.
"I've not got a mother," he replied simply, "nor a father."
"Oh, poor, poor Monty!" the two girls whispered kindly, and Billy
sidled up to the boy in a friendly, protective way.
"Ah, now I see why you don't belong to the picture," Nancy added.
"It's a horrid, prim picture and it's hurting you, isn't it?"
Montague looked up at her in surprise.
"How d'you know?" he asked. The way in which he said it told so much
that their hearts ached for him.
"'Cos I kind of _feel_ it about you--we said so before you turned and
saw us. Who do you live with, and how long--how long have you had to
live here?" She could not bring herself to ask how long he had been
without a father or mother.
"Three months," he replied, in a voice that suggested that the three
months had been as three centuries to him. "He's sorry for me to be
here; he said he'd hoped to have had a home for Jocelyne and me with
somebody who would have been a mother-person to us, but he said they
couldn't agree about something or other, an' so there was no
mother-person and no home--not yet."
"But who is 'he'?" asked Billy.
"My guardian," Montague replied.
"Is he nice?" asked Mavis.
"Yes, I like him--we're friends. He's going to let me live with him
in London in the winter and p'raps Jocelyne, but _she_ doesn't mind
being here."
"Who's Jocelyne?" asked Nancy.
"She's my sister." he replied, in a resigned voice. "Sisters are
not very nice people," he added bitterly. "They get grown-up and
don't mind being prim, and they hate you being a bit dirty, an' it's
wash, wash, wash morning, noon an' night."
"_I_ don't like dirty people either," Mavis said. "Billy has to wash
_properly_."
Billy giggled, and Montague gazed solemnly first at him and then at
Mavis.
"Don't you like _me_?" he growled wistfully.
"I don't know you," Mavis replied. "P'raps I might like you if you
were clean," she added kindly.
"Oh, but we do like him, Mavis! We're sorry for him, aren't we?"
Nancy said impulsively.
"Yes, of course we're sorry and p'raps you'd be clean if you had a
'mother," Mavis replied gently. "Wouldn't you, Monty?" she added
with such a winning smile in her blue eyes that Montague suddenly
felt an overwhelming desire to wash and wash until he was as white as
snow. Yet, though he would have given much to do so, he could not
truthfully own to absolute cleanliness even under his mother's
influence. He grew solemn and thoughtful once more.
"Mothers, when they're dead, try to help boys," he began. "There's a
boy I know," he went on in his queer, rumbling way, "a boy what
sometimes uses bad words an' his mother is an angel an' she comes to
him sometimes at night looking all shiny and sorry, an' she says
she'll help him not to use 'em."
"And does he manage not to now?" Nancy enquired sympathetically.
"Well, he doesn't use the _very_ bad ones. Mothers," he added
abruptly, "are different from aunts. _They_ punish you if you use
'em." His voice grew vindictive. "When I'm grown-up I shall have a
son ten years old, and he shall go without cake and jam for a month
if he uses them, an' if he slides down banisters or along slippery
floors, _then_ he'll be sorry!"
"Oh, but aunts are nice," Mavis interrupted him. "We all love our
Aunt Letty; she plays with us and tells us stories--an' she's pretty."
"Well," replied Montague, "great-aunts are different then. _They_
don't ever play with you, neither are they pretty. An' if you have
boots that sound nice then they try to make you sorry about them.
But," and here his brown eyes suddenly sparkled impishly, "if you've
got to wear slippers downstairs you can put your boots on in your
bedroom and stride up and down s'much as you like and nobody'll hear
you."
"I don't think that sounds very exciting," Mavis said. "I don't like
clumsy boots."
Montague looked crestfallen as he gazed first at his own thick-soled
boots and then at the trim little shoes Mavis was wearing.
"And is it your great-aunt you live with?" asked Nancy. "Is this her
house and is that why it's so prim and neat?"
Montague nodded.
"Yes, it's hers an' she says there won't be much of it left if I'm
here much longer. _I_ can't help it if things get in the way. But
my guardian says I've got to try and stand it a bit longer; he says
he wants to study up the 'responsibilities of parenthood,' or
somethin' like that. He says it's all very well to learn gradually
to be a parent, but a boy of ten and a girl of fifteen, and him a
bachelor of thirty he says isn't an easy situation. He says there
should be lectures to meet the case. He's more afraid of Jocelyne
than me 'cos women, he says, are unaccountable. He talks to me a
lot--he likes talking. Some of it's queer kind of talk, but anyway
he likes boys an' that's more'n great-aunts do. An' he plays with
me."
"Our Uncle Val plays with us when he's in England, and there was
another, a nearly-uncle, who used to play with us," said Mavis.
"Uncle Val's in Egypt now," Billy, who was never tired of talking of
his uncle's wanderings, informed Montague. "He's been to Russia,
too--he's an adventurer, and so are we!" he added proudly.
"Adventurers?" Montague repeated with interest.
"Yes, we're going to travel with a donkey. We're going to the hills
over there." Billy nodded in the direction of the hills.
Montague's interest increased.
"When do you start?" he asked.
"We've started. We've come miles already, an' we're going on for
days--_p'raps_ a week."
Montague gazed at the three adventurers with undisguised admiration
and respect.
"An' are you going on _now_?" he asked wistfully.
"Yes, an' we'd better hurry. We kind of forgot while we were talking
to you. We've miles to go!" Billy was in a tremendous hurry now to
be moving.
"An' me here hoeing and weedin' all the summer holidays! Me stuck in
this garden with nobody to play with!" Montague's voice was so sad
and his words called up so gloomy a picture that instinctively the
same thought swept through each of the three children. Billy voiced
it.
"I say, come with us!"
"Do come!" added Nancy.
"Yes, we'd like you to come, Monty," Mavis added sweetly, "only you
will wash yourself first, won't you?"
Montague's usually solemn eyes literally danced with joy.
"I'll be ready in less'n a minute!" he cried, and dropping the hoe,
he ran swiftly down the garden. A moment later, they saw him on the
other side of the laurel hedge running along a path in the flower
garden.
"He's going to that gold-fish pond in the middle of the lawn there!
Oh, do look!" Billy chuckled in enjoyment. "If the great-aunt saw
him now wouldn't her hair fly!"
Montague was kneeling on the stone edge of the pond dipping his
earthy hands into the clear water. Next he pulled out the grimy
handkerchief, swished it about amongst the goldfish, and smeared it
over his face. Satisfied with the result, he thrust the handkerchief
back into his pocket and came bounding towards them.
"Now I'm ready!" he cried joyfully. "Let's start!"
Mavis eyed him critically.
"Oh, you awful, awful boy," she sighed. "You're worse than before.
You _can't_ come like that."
Montague sighed, too.
"You're never pleased with me," he rumbled unhappily, "an' _I_ think
you're so pretty."
Mavis felt a little ashamed. She thought a moment.
"Here, quick," she said, pulling out her own dainty little
handkerchief. "Run and dip that in the pond and bring it to me.
_I'll_ wash your face."
Montague hesitated miserably. Washing was bad enough in itself, but
could he possibly submit to the terrible indignity of being washed by
a girl--even if she did happen to be the prettiest little girl he had
ever seen. Was it, after all, worth while?
"Hurry, Monty, there's a good boy, else somebody may come and stop
us," Mavis said anxiously.
The adorable motherliness behind the anxiety half decided Montague.
He glared hard at Billy, defying him to laugh.
"_I've_ been through it," Billy sighed, with his happy grin. "Girls
are tyrants--specially sisters!"
Montague, with a mixture of defiance and subjection in his walk,
returned to the pond, dipped the tiny handkerchief in the water and
brought it back to Mavis.
"I won't hurt you," she said kindly, as she wiped away the
water-marks.
Not hurt him? Montague writhed inwardly under the hurt to his pride.
Why he submitted he hardly knew; certainly, it was the last thing he
would have imagined himself doing.
"Why, you're quite nice-looking now you're clean!" Mavis said,
surveying her handiwork with pride. "Run an' wash my handky
quick--then we're ready."
Montague departed with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.
"She said I'm nice-looking!" he told himself joyfully as he flew to
the pond. Why, it was almost worth while to be clean after all.