Fiammetta here! for the rest of the summer! and summer had only just
begun.
"Well," said father, "that seems to me a very sound suggestion--but
what'll he do with Miss Sparling?"
She was the lady who kept house for him.
"She'll go off on a round of visits and they'll shut the house. We were
to have the child in any case in the holidays, so it's only a month or
two sooner. It will be nice for you, Janey, to have her"--and mother
smiled at me.
Nice for me!
I mumbled something suitable: but I felt too strongly to do more than
mumble. There was a singing in my ears and a lump in my throat ... but
father understood, for he said: "It will be pleasant to have the little
blue maid again: eh, Janey?" and I nodded at father and father nodded at
me. Then he opened the newspaper and didn't look at me any more, and I
was grateful.
"I wonder," said Paul, "how many more plays she's been to. We shall be
able to act them all when she's told us."
A year ago she had come to us, this child, so utterly different from any
other child we knew; come to us, and, for me, had changed and widened
and vitalised the whole essential part of my being.
At first I wasn't even sure that I liked her. She _was_ so different:
but gradually I discovered that in this difference lay her mysterious
elusive charm.
Little blue-gowned Fiammetta, always quaint, always picturesque, always
and entirely unexpected. At first her somewhat superior and grown-up
attitude irritated us extremely, but very soon we found that this was
but a thin veneer acquired by much contact with grown-up people of a
type we seldom saw. Beneath it was the child, a veritable
child--whimsical, imaginative affectionate, ever-various--with a power
of suggesting and carrying through new and fascinating forms of play
that even Paul could not equal, Paul who had imagination enough to stock
ten families.
But we regarded the vagaries of our younger brother with suspicion and
some scorn. He was so young. What is eight compared to eleven? And
Harry, now alas! exiled at a preparatory school, was twelve. Harry, my
guide, philosopher and friend, reft from me for long periods of the
year.
We had seen her once since last summer--just once, in the Christmas
holidays, when Harry, Paul and I, in charge of Miss Goodlake, our
governess, went for two long, crowded, glorious days to London. We
stayed out at Hampstead, where Mr. Glyn had taken a house that Fiammetta
might as a day-girl go to a nice school there.
But when you are seeing things all day long you can't seem to see
people, and Fiammetta herself was swamped in a sea of other wonders and
impressions.
Now she was really coming back and I should get some good of her.
And the very week she came back we had to go from Friday to Monday to
stay with Uncle Edward and Aunt Alice over at Elcombe House.
I never wanted to go there, and desired it less than ever just then; but
Aunt Alice is mother's sister and it had been arranged for weeks, and
when mother suggested that I couldn't go because Fiammetta was coming,
they invited her too with the utmost cordiality. So there was no
getting out of it.
As it happened, it proved a more amusing visit than usual.
"What's the matter with them, Janey, that you groan so?" Fiammetta asked
that Friday morning. "Don't you _like_ your cousins?"
Put crudely like that, it sounded rather bad. I hedged.
"I _like_ them well enough, but I hate going there, to stay. It's so
stiff somehow, everything's always arranged for one--you'll see."
"I like Teddy," Lucy announced--plump, placid Lucy, who had come into
our room in nurse's wake while she packed our things for Sunday. "I
_love_ Teddy," Lucy continued, "he and me's both five."
"If," nurse remarked severely, "you was a bit more _like_ your cousins,
Miss Janey, it would be better for all parties. Very nicely brought-up
young ladies they are, and full of accomplishments."
That was it. They _were_ so full of accomplishments. Hermy (her name
was Hermione), only a year my senior, was already learning to paint in
oils and studied Italian. Viola, eighteen months younger, could play
quite difficult music and danced by herself at tea-parties, clad in
classic draperies. Teddy--it was father who called him Teddy, and the
name stuck, though Uncle Edward disliked it extremely--was the best of
them: moon-faced, good-natured and absolutely simple, a well-meaning,
quite ordinary little boy with no airs or graces. Teddy, so Harry said,
was "awfully decent."
"You haven't explained," Fiammetta insisted. "What's your uncle like?"
"It's no use," I exclaimed, "I can't explain--you wait. Perhaps," I
added hopefully, "you'll like him."
When Uncle Edward bought Elcombe House, only eight miles off, we
children rejoiced: for now, we thought, there could be no possible
reason for the "Eeny-Peenies," as we called the girls, coming to stay
with us. But we had reckoned without the hospitality of the Staceys. We
were everlastingly being invited to stay with them, and of two evils
this was by far the greater. They were always--Uncle Edward, the two
governesses, Hermy and Vi--trying to improve us, especially me.
Paul didn't fit as to age, and his temperament was, apparently, even
less adaptable than mine. Whenever Paul went, there was trouble. Lucy
and Teddy were the best of friends, but nurse and the Staceys' nurse
couldn't hit it off at all. Harry was safe at school, therefore the lot
generally fell upon me to go ... and I hated it.
This time I felt it would not be so bad because Fiammetta was there, and
Fiammetta was capable of holding her own with dozens of Staceys.
In the first place, she was a well-known poet's only child. They would
respect her for that. In the second place, people who tried to
patronise Fiammetta were riding for a fall. That I had seen proved,
over and over again. Paul was like that too, but then Paul was only one
of us, and they looked down on us. Uncle Edward looked down on father.
I knew it, I felt it. I resented it intensely.
Uncle Edward had a way of condemning amusements that he didn't care
about by calling them "rather horrid" in a high thin voice that was far
more condemnatory than the loudest fulminations of ordinary folk. Both
hunting and shooting fell under this ban, and father liked both. As for
fishing, Uncle Edward considered it the last resource of the mentally
effete. Agricultural pursuit; he dismissed as "rather bucolic," and
father farmed his own land and was extremely keen about everything that
concerned it. Whist and Bridge--Bridge had just begun to be popular--he
described as "dreadful games"; in fact, he "loathed all cards" except
Patience. He was an expert in Patience, knowing quite forty different
kinds; but he didn't care for it unless at least three people watched
him do it--which was dull for the selected three.
He was a slim, small man, whom no mortal ever saw without his
pince-nez--I believe he slept in them--with a pale, regularly-featured
face, clean-shaven and legal-looking. He was delicate, took immense
care of himself, and cultivated a large and healthy crop of dislikes.
His sense of smell was painfully acute, and many quite ordinary odours,
that do not offend less sensitively constituted mortals, were, to him,
quite unbearable. Tobacco he could not endure. When father went to
Elcombe House he had to creep away to the furthest point of the most
distant garden to enjoy the smoke he could in no wise forgo. And when
he returned, Uncle Edward always sniffed delicately and looked pained.
A cut melon caused Uncle Edward to feel unwell, and I do believe if any
one had eaten an apple in front of him he would have fainted outright.
We arrived just before tea. Hermy and Vi met us in the hall and walked
upstairs one on either side of Fiammetta, leaving me to follow by
myself. They showed us our rooms--we had one each--and they left me in
mine while they both accompanied Fiammetta to hers.
After tea, presided over by Mademoiselle and Fraeulein, Teddy suddenly
demanded, "What have you done with the poet?"
"What poet?" asked Fiammetta, for Teddy's remark was evidently addressed
to her, his round eyes never left her face.
"The poet you belongs to. Where have you put him?"
"I don't," Fiammetta said rather huffily, "_put_ my father anywhere--do
you?"
"He's not a poet," Teddy said, quite unmoved by her disapproval. "He's
only an or'nary father."
"_Indeed_ he's not," cried Viola; "he's very _ex*traordinary--*most_
gifted," she added complacently.
Teddy continued to stare at Fiammetta.
"You haven't _told_ me," he continued.
"Told you _what_?"
"--where he is."
"He's in London, if you mean my daddie."
"_Must_ he stay there?"
"Of course not, if he doesn't want to."
"Then why doesn't he come here with you?"
"Because he's in London, I tell you."
"Doesn't he _want_ to come here?"
"I suppose not," said Fiammetta, whose patience was nearly exhausted.
"Do you always ask so many questions?"
"I always _ask_," Teddy replied candidly, "but people never tells me all
I want to know. Sometimes they don't even answer."
"I should think not," cried Viola. "A little boy like you! Run away
and play with your horse and cart. Fiammetta has come to see _us_, not
you."
"_Have_ you?" the downright Teddy asked wistfully.
"I've come to see all of you," Fiammetta said graciously, "though I'm
really staying with Janey, you know."
"Perhaps you'll come and stay with us too, mother said; without Janey,
for a bit," Hermy suggested.
Fiammetta stared.
"Without Janey?" she repeated. "Why?"
Hermy looked rather uncomfortable.
"Well, in case Janey didn't care to come, you know," and Hermy put her
arm round Fiammetta.
Fiammetta drew herself away: "I shouldn't like it at all without Janey,
thank you," she said stiffly; "she's my greatest friend."
Hermy and Viola looked at each other and then at me, as though they were
considering me in a new light. Teddy, who had not done his sister's
bidding and was still hanging on the outskirts of our little group, said
suddenly, "I'll come and stay with both of you whenever you ask me,
wivout Nana," and he thrust a sticky little hand into mine. My heart
went out to him, and I gave the hot small hand a squeeze. Teddy and I
were of the inarticulate, but we understood one another.
Viola turned ostentatiously to Fiammetta. "Would you," she asked
sweetly, "like to see me dance? Fraeulein will play for me, and we have
half an hour before we go down to father in the drawing-room."
"No, thank you," Fiammetta replied with the utmost decision: "I see
plenty of girls dancing at school, and I can dance myself--perhaps you'd
like to see _me_ dance?"
"I think," Viola said hastily, "that we'd better neither of us dance
just now, lest we get too hot. Shall we go out into the garden till
reading time?"
This we did.
On the stroke of six a bell was rung from the front door and we all four
went to the drawing-room, where Aunt Alice and Uncle Edward awaited us.
It was his custom to read to his family every evening at this hour,
unless there happened to be a garden-party. Whatever anybody was doing,
they were haled to the drawing-room to hear Uncle Edward read aloud.
"Edward reads so beautifully," Aunt Alice always said, and I dare say he
did. But no one always wants to listen to the most perfect reading, and
this evening I noted with some consternation that Fiammetta was bored,
and showed it.
She fidgeted, she yawned, she drummed with her fingers on the edge of
her chair. Once she shuffled her feet, and Uncle Edward actually stopped
and looked severely at me. I know he gave me the credit for all the
small disturbances that occurred that evening, whereas I was still as a
mouse, and far too interested in Fiammetta's frank manifestations of
_ennui_ to have indulged in any myself.
At that time he was going through a course of Jane Austen, for whose
works he had an enthusiastic admiration, and I remember thinking that he
was rather like a Jane Austen person himself, and that she would have
"done him" uncommonly well. The book he read was _Pride and Prejudice_,
most witty and delightful to read in later life. But children miss the
real savour of its caustic wit, and I know that it was as much over
Fiammetta's head as over mine, even though she was so infinitely better
versed in literature of all kinds than I. At seven Uncle Edward ceased,
placing a marker in the page as he closed the book.
"Perhaps," he said, "Fiammetta already knows this book by heart and can
tell me what comes next."
Fiammetta arose hastily from her chair with evident relief: "Oh, no,"
she said frankly, "that's not the sort of book one knows by heart. I
don't think it's particularly interesting--do you?"
"I think it is a masterpiece," Uncle Edward replied, almost breathless
with astonishment. "I hope that in a year or two Viola and Hermione
will know it, and many others by the incomparable Jane, as well as they
know their multiplication table."
"Do they know that awfully well?" asked Fiammetta. "I don't; the sevens
and the nines are so muddling--my daddie quite agrees with me. May we
go away now?"
In all my intercourse with Fiammetta, the thing that never failed of its
joy and wonder was the way she nonplussed grown-up people. They seemed
to have no suitable snub ready for her. She was not in the least
impertinent, but neither was she deferential to their superior
intelligence. In fact, she made us question sometimes whether they were
so very intelligent. She lived on terms of such absolute equality with
her father, such understanding affection existed between them, that it
never occurred to Fiammetta to conceal her opinions or to pretend she
liked things merely to please people who happened to be several years
older than herself. She was quite prepared to show Uncle Edward good
reasons for her lack of interest in _Pride and Prejudice_ as frankly as
she afterwards gave them to me. But she had no opportunity, for I
remember Aunt Alice hustled us out into the garden with almost unseemly
haste, and we were set to play golf croquet, in which game Viola and
Hermione excelled, I was only moderately good, and Fiammetta couldn't
play at all. Naturally she did not enjoy herself much.
By lunch time on Saturday she was, as she herself put it, "thoroughly
issasperated" with things in general. Never for one moment were we left
alone. Something was arranged for every minute. The Staceys believed
in organised games; "innocent pastimes varied by intellectual pursuits"
was Uncle Edward's curriculum, and it would have been excellent had
there been rather less of the innocent pastimes. Until quite recently
the Staceys had lived in towns, and they had yet to learn that in the
country children can find their own amusements with the greatest ease:
that Dame Nature is an excellent M.C., and that the queer plays children
invent for themselves are far more entrancing than any game that is
played by rule.
Fiammetta looked quite pale and exhausted after a morning spent in
rounders, clumps, golf croquet (she rested and watched us during this,
as she firmly refused to play, but Fraeulein sat with her lest she
should be dull), spelling-game, Puss-in-the-corner, and "Earth, air,
fire, and water."
Observe the judicious admixture of active exercise and mental
gymnastics.
While I was washing my hands for lunch she came into my room, shut my
door--I'm afraid she banged it--locked it, and stood with her back
against it.
"Janey, I want to go home," she announced. "I want to go back to the
Court this afternoon. Will you ask them to drive us?"
"I can't," I exclaimed, aghast. "It would never do; we've been asked
till Monday, and we must stay here till then."
"Why should I stay if I hate it?"
"Because it's all arranged; they'd never forgive us if we went home; it
would be so rude."
She began to cry. "I'm so tired," she sobbed, "sick and tired of silly
games that one can make so many mistakes in, and they keep showing you
all the time. Janey, I can't go on with it."
I was horror-struck. The luncheon gong would ring in two minutes, and
if Fiammetta was tear-stained there would be inquiries.
I flew to her with the towel in my wet hands, and put my arms round her.
"Don't cry!" I besought her, "if you do, they'll think I've been
pinching you, or something," and she began to laugh. She dried her eyes
on the towel and then said irrelevantly, "Paul didn't come. Why isn't
he here, too, to help bear it?"
"He wasn't asked," I said. "He doesn't do here at all."
"I don't do either," she protested; "it's a shame. When I think of Paul
wandering about in that dear garden, _doing exactly what he likes_, I
could scream."
"For mercy's sake don't," I said. "They'd want to know why, and _then_
what could you say?"
"Janey, after we've gone to bed and everything's quiet, may I come in
and sleep with you? I wouldn't be so miserable then."
"It's a very little bed," I said dubiously, "and you're an awful fidget.
I hear you in our room at home. You go round and round like a dog."
"I'll bring my bedclothes and sleep on the floor, and go back very early
in the morning, then they'll never know."
To pacify her, I consented to this, well knowing which of us would sleep
on the floor. In the afternoon they took us out in the motor, and this
we enjoyed, for motors were then something of a novelty, and Uncle
Edward did not come.
Tea passed off quite peacefully. After tea Viola again proposed to
dance for us, and again Fiammetta politely but firmly gainsayed the
suggestion unless she, too, might perform, which was not in the least
what Viola wanted.
As the fateful hour of six approached I trembled, especially as
Fiammetta left us without any explanation (we were gathered on the lawn
in front of the drawing-room windows) and calmly walked into the house.
I watched the slim blue figure vanish; presently she returned, carrying
one of the Jungle books.
"What's the use of getting that just as we're going in to papa?" asked
Hermy.
"It's because I've got to go in to Mr. Stacey that I've fetched it. I
don't care for that book about Mr. d'Arcy, so I'll read this."
Hermy and Viola gasped, I quaked, Aunt Alice looked rather frightened;
Fraeulein and Mademoiselle regarded Fiammetta with silent admiration.
"I don't think papa would like you to do that, my dear," Aunt Alice said
gently. "You see, if he is kind enough to read to us, the least we can
do is to listen carefully."
"Why, if we don't want to?" Fiammetta persisted. "If I mayn't read in
there, may I stay out here and read?"
"Papa likes us _all_ to be present when he's so good as to read to us,"
Aunt Alice said more firmly. "It would never do for one of our guests
to miss his reading. Give me that book, dear!"
Aunt Alice held out her hand for the book. Fiammetta put it behind her
back: "Mrs. Stacey," she said earnestly, "I don't understand. Is it like
church? Nurse says we go to church here because it's pleasing to the
Almighty--we never go in London, daddie and I. Do we have to listen to
Mr. Stacey because it's pleasing to the Almighty, or what?"
Aunt Alice lost her temper. "You must do as you are told," she said
shortly. "Give me that book. I see papa at the window; he is ready for
us."
With a sigh Fiammetta handed over the Jungle Book and we all filed into
the drawing-room.
Uncle Edward sat in his usual chair, carefully placed so that the light
fell at exactly the right angle upon his book. We all settled ourselves
to listen respectfully, except Fiammetta, who, just as he was about to
begin, stood up and said, "Mr. Stacey, do _you_ mind if I go into the
garden instead of listening?"
Uncle Edward gazed at Fiammetta in the utmost astonishment: "Don't you
want to hear the reading?" he asked.
"Not a bit," Fiammetta said firmly. "I know you do it for kindness and
all that, but it _does_ bore me so. I asked Mrs. Stacey, but she seemed
to think you'd mind ... you don't, _do_ you?" and she smiled in
friendliest fashion at Uncle Edward.
"It is, of course," he said slowly, "a matter of pure indifference to me
whether you are present or not."
"Thank you _so_ much," Fiammetta said sweetly. "You don't mind now, do
you, dear Mrs. Stacey? And may I have the Jungle Book to take with me?"
She took the book from Aunt Alice's unresisting hands as she passed.
She skipped out of the window and across the lawn. She arranged herself
in a garden chair with a leg-rest, all in full view of the windows ...
and Uncle Edward began to read.
He read for an hour and a half.
Even Aunt Alice looked three times at the clock during the last
half-hour.
When at length he did finish, and Hermy and Viola and I were about to
flee into the garden to hunt for Fiammetta, who had long ago tired of
the Jungle Book and wandered away, he stayed us with a motion of his
hand.
"I hope," he said gravely, "that you will let this evening's incident be
a lesson to you, an object-lesson as to how a guest should _not_
behave."
Hermy and Viola looked duly disgusted at Fiammetta's conduct; I, as
usual when confronted with Uncle Edward, looked foolish. None of the
three of us made any remark. "Remember," he said, "that the perfect
guest invariably falls in with every custom of his host. He becomes a
part of the household. You understand?"
"Yes, papa," said Hermy and Viola in dutiful chorus; "we will always try
to."
"And you, Janey, will you lay this lesson to heart?"
"Yes, Uncle Edward," I, too, said meekly; and then, feeling rather mean,
I added, "but father says we ought to _ask_ our guests if they like
things."
"Certainly," he replied coldly, "in reason; but you cannot disorganise
the entire working of a household to please a guest. Especially," he
added, with evident annoyance, "when that guest happens to be a spoilt,
conceited child."
"I don't think Fiammetta is conceited," I pleaded, "but she's used to
saying right out when she hates things----"
"That will do, Janey," Aunt Alice interposed hastily. "Run away,
children, and find Fiammetta."
As we ran, I reflected that Uncle Edward certainly did not himself
fulfil his definition of the perfect guest. When he stayed with us,
poor father couldn't smoke a single pipe in the house, and all fruits
that had any sort of a smell were banished from the _menu_.
We found Fiammetta at last in the garage, conversing with the chauffeur.
"He's really a much more interesting man than Mr. Stacey," she confided
to me that night when she came to sleep in my bed the floor _was_ hard
and rather cold--"he told me about all the accidents he's ever been in."
*XVII*
*A SOLDIER'S BUTTON*
His family could not understand why Teddy had such a passion for
soldiers. Certainly his family neither inspired nor shared it.
Papa declared them to be "elementary persons of a low standard of
intelligence."
Mummy was mildly negative in her views. She did not, like papa, express
actual disapproval of them as a class; they may even have had a
dimly-felt attraction for her--she was very like Teddy in some ways--but
she was a devoted wife, and it would never have occurred to her to
champion any cause or individual disapproved of by papa.
Teddy's sisters, both considerably older than he--for he was only
four--were facile echoes of their parents. And, after all, there was no
earthly reason why any of the family should take any particular interest
in soldiers. They had seen very few. When they did happen to come
across a body of men in uniform marching to the strains of a military
band, they doubtless thrilled for a moment like everybody else; then the
soldiers and all they stood for vanished from their minds as from their
sight.
But it was otherwise with Teddy. He thought about soldiers, dreamed of
soldiers, talked about soldiers, and asked incessant questions about
soldiers all day long and with any one he could get to answer him. And
this was the more surprising inasmuch as he was not naturally a
talkative child, being of a somewhat taciturn and ruminative
disposition. It annoyed papa, for, quiet and biddable as Teddy was in
every other respect, his enthusiasm for the soldier subject was such
that no amount of snubbing could keep him off it.
And it started this way. One year, on their way to the Highlands, they
stayed in Edinburgh for the month of July. A friend of papa's lent them
his flat. The flat was in Ramsay Gardens, and Teddy's nursery window
looked over the Castle Esplanade. The Black Watch was stationed at the
Castle just then, and from his window Teddy beheld them drilling. He
was always seeing them when he went out, and whensoever he did see them,
singly or in companies, he was thrilled to the centre of his little
soul. It is believed that his nurse shared his enthusiasm, but this was
not known till long afterwards. But this much is certain, that when she
and Teddy went out to take the air, whether he trotted by her side, or
was seated proudly in his mail-cart, they seldom went in any direction
that did not either lead to, or circulate round about, the evolutions of
the Black Watch. Moreover, that regiment never marched in any direction
whatsoever that Teddy and his nurse were not among the most palpitating
of interested spectators.
Teddy's nurse was distinctly pleasing to the eye. Plump, fresh-coloured
and very neat in her becoming uniform, she was of that superior order of
nurses who are trained in institutions guaranteed to turn out guardians
of the young not only medically competent to deal with every known form
of infantile disease, but so deeply versed in psychology as to be able
to draw out all that is best, and suppress anything that is evil, in a
child's character.
Mummy had selected her with extreme care, and Teddy was almost entirely
in her charge. Mummy went out a good deal, for both she and papa had
many friends in Edinburgh whom they had not seen for a very long time.
His sisters were under the dominion of a Fraeulein, so he and his nurse
were left almost entirely to their own devices.
It was a beautiful July, and they were hardly ever kept indoors by bad
weather. Teddy's cheeks grew round and rosy, his eyes bright and
interested, so that his parents declared the keen bracing air was doing
him all the good in the world. Up to that time he had been rather a
pale, phlegmatic child.
To get from Princes Street to Ramsay Gardens one has to mount an
exceedingly steep hill, pretty stiff walking for a pedestrian, and real
hard work when you've got to push a mail-cart with a solid small boy in
it. Yet very often his nurse would take Teddy to Princes Street Gardens
in the afternoon, and generally on such occasions the band of the Black
Watch discoursed sweet music from the band-stand.
On the return journey there always appeared some kindly kilted figure
anxious to "gie the bairn a hurl" up the steepest part of the hill.
Nurse was always very staid and dignified on such occasions. She
accepted assistance, it is true, but with reservations. Moreover, she
even tried to check Teddy's efforts in the way of conversation with his
escort by time-worn aphorisms to the effect that little boys should be
seen and not heard. But here she failed signally.
"When I'm a man," said Teddy, during one of these delicious "hurrls," "I
hope I sail be a gate big soldier like you."
"You mean, my dear, that you hope you'll be an officer," nurse remarked
loftily.
"A bave British officer," Teddy repeated obediently.
"That's the ticket," he of the kilt agreed cordially, quite unconscious
of the implied snub. "I'd like fine to serve under ye mysel'."
"I expect you'll be an officer too by then," Teddy suggested.
The big soldier chuckled. "I'm no for onnything o' that sort," he said,
shaking his head. "I'm for the Resairve--when I marry," he added, with
a side glance at Teddy's pretty nurse.
"That will do, Mr. Macdonald," she said, laying a neatly-gloved hand on
the handle of the mail-cart. "I can manage myself now; we are past the
steepest part."
The soldier obediently relinquished the mail-cart. He saluted Teddy,
and Teddy saluted him with great solemnity. Then, with quite equal
solemnity he winked, and swung away down the hill again.
Papa's friend had lent his servants as well as his flat, and among them
was a highland housemaid, called Campbell by the authorities but known
among her fellows as Girzie. And so Teddy knew her. Of course, nurse
was far too grand a person to consort with the other servants on
familiar terms. She might, on occasion, when nobody else was present,
unbend a little towards a sergeant-major in his splendid uniform, but
she rigorously enforced the distance her "training" put between her and
the servants, and they not even of her employer's household. All the
same, nurse made no objection when Girzie offered to look after Teddy on
such occasions as she wanted an afternoon off in the society of that
same sergeant-major. And Girzie, who adored Teddy, was most
accommodating.
Now Girzie had a brother in the Black Watch. It is true he was "only
just a soldier," as Teddy put it, to distinguish him from the more
highly-placed acquaintance of nurse, but he looked upon it as a distinct
advantage, for under Girzie's guardianship he was allowed to converse
freely with the short, thick-set man, who was so agreeably ready to
answer questions.
From him Teddy learnt the true significance of dirks and sporrans and
philabegs and plaids and badges, and many other things. The letter R
was still a difficulty with Teddy, and he felt rather out of it among
people who seemed to take a positive delight in giving that letter an
almost undue prominence. Yet, though Girzie's brother did exclaim
rather often, "eh! what's that you're sayin'?" they got on famously on
the whole; and though it may not be wholly flattering to be addressed as
"the wee stoot yen," yet Teddy overlooked the familiarity because of the
affection in its tone.
He was something of an Elizabethan in his simplicity and jovial sense of
fellowship with his kind. And the truth is that the atmosphere of
Teddy's home was somewhat rarefied.
Papa was a Superior Person, quite excellent and kind in all his domestic
relations, but in many respects what more ordinary mortals called a
crank.
He had views, strong views, and he was apt to enforce them: not only
upon his family, whom, of course, in consequence of these very views, he
felt bound to influence, but also upon outsiders, who, if of a hasty
disposition, were apt to wish papa at Jericho, or even in some still
warmer place. He was also a person of many and vigorous antipathies,
which he seemed to think entitled him to special consideration.
Therefore did Teddy feel that the simple and jovial persons he
encountered in Edinburgh filled a hitherto unsatisfied want in his
nature, and he loved them dearly.
And they loved him; for the "wee stoot yen" was irresistibly frank and
friendly and few of us are impervious to the flattery of such respectful
admiration as Teddy's round face and blue eyes plainly manifested
whenever he came across any of his friends in the Black Watch.
One day when he was out with Girzie she took him to the Arcade in
Princes Street, and there bought him a doll dressed as a Highlander.
Teddy was charmed with the present, though he could have wished that the
china face under the fierce busby had been a thought less chubby and
simpering, and what really did worry him was a feeling that there was
something not quite right about the uniform. He didn't know what it
was, and he was too well-bred and grateful to Girzie for her kind
present to find any fault; but when on the way up the hill they met her
brother, he at once pointed out several discrepancies, which he
commanded Girzie to alter, explaining how it should be done. Girzie
carried out his instructions that night, and next day they christened
the doll "Colin Dougal," after the said brother, and it became Teddy's
most precious possession.
Colin Dougal slept with him, ousting from that proud post a fluffy bird
attached to an elastic that had hitherto possessed the privilege. Colin
Dougal accompanied him in his mail-cart, and sat beside him at nursery
meals; and to Colin Dougal Teddy used to sing, over and over again, the
refrain of an old song he had learned from Girzie:--
"My love, she's in Dumbarton,
Whaur they weir the tartan,
Whaur they weir the tartan--
Faur abin the knee!"
It seemed quite fitting that anybody's love should dwell in a part of
the country where they wore that entrancing costume, and Teddy felt
certain that Dumbarton must be a specially delightful place, and was
quite drawn to the lady. But always after singing it he was assailed by
doubts as to whether Colin Dougal's tartan was quite short enough.
Girzie had shortened it, but the exigencies of his china legs precluded
the strict brevity of a kilt as worn by the Black Watch. Still, the
tartan was the right tartan, and that was something.
The pleasant July days, so long and light, slipped speedily away, till
an afternoon came when Teddy, returning from a walk with Girzie, found
the nursery full of boxes, and nurse, who demanded the immediate
surrender of Colin Dougal that she might pack him.
The little boy clasped his doll more firmly in his arms, looked round
the dismantled nursery, and grim foreboding laid a chilly hand upon his
heart.
"What do you want to pack for?" he asked breathlessly.
"Because we're going by an early train to-morrow, and mummy says
everything must be ready to-night."
"Going!" he gasped. "Going where?"
"We're all going to Kingussie for August."
"I'm not going, I don't want to go. I want to stay here, wiv all my
fends.... Do you," he asked anxiously, "want to go to Kingussie?"
Nurse looked flushed and rather cross.
"I'm not asked," she muttered, "what I want, nor you neither, Teddy.
Give me that doll at once, and I'll pack him with the other toys."
Teddy stared stonily at her, nor made the smallest effort to surrender
his doll.
"I'm not going," he said firmly, "not to-morrow. Why, I haven't said
good-bye to none of them, have you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," said nurse huffily; "give me
that doll at once, you know I don't allow disobedience."
And as she spoke she made a grab at the doll.
Teddy held on with all his strength. They were starting for Kingussie a
day earlier than had been originally intended, and it had only been
decided upon that morning. Mummy had taken it upon herself to send
Girzie out with Teddy, leaving nurse free to pack. This had upset all
nurse's plans, and left Sergeant-Major Macdonald kicking his heels
during a vain wait at the bottom of the hill, while Girzie and Teddy
went off in quite another direction. Therefore nurse was decidedly
irritable, and rather roughly tried to pull Colin Dougal out of Teddy's
arms.
For a full minute Teddy held on with all his little strength, then
suddenly and despairingly let go. And at the same instant nurse also
let go, remembering that it was undignified to struggle with a small
child for the possession of a china doll.
Colin Dougal fell with a thump upon the floor, one of his china legs
broke right in two, and the severed half leapt gaily under a chair.
Teddy took a deep breath and yelled and yelled and yelled.
Papa and mummy heard him in the drawing-room, and rushed to the nursery
to see what had happened.
He was standing stock still just inside the door. Nurse had picked up
Colin Dougal and the bit of his leg, and was vainly trying to explain to
her demented charge that it could easily be mended.
But Teddy struck at her with both his hands, and refused to be
comforted. He also continued to bawl with unabated vigour after his
parents had entered the room.
"What's this? What's this?" exclaimed papa.
"Are you hurt, my precious?" mummy inquired tenderly, as she knelt
beside her little boy.
Teddy did not repulse his mother, and managed to ejaculate in the middle
of a roar, "I don't _want_ to go to Kingussie!"
The accident to Colin Dougal seemed a minor woe, caused by, and included
in, this devastating news of departure.
"Nonsense!" papa exclaimed, looking pained; "not want to go to
Kingussie! Why, it's country--real, beautiful, quiet country--far better
than this place, with those infernal bugles braying from morning till
night, and the horrid band, and air those tramping soldiers. You'll
love Kingussie."
Teddy stopped afresh in the midst of renewed efforts in the way of yells
to hiccough indignantly "not--'fernal bugles!"
Papa looked rather surprised, but his pained look returned as Teddy
started to shout again at the top of his voice.
Nurse, taking advantage of the general confusion, packed Colin Dougal,
and actually wrapped up the piece of his leg in a separate bit of paper
with cold-blooded detachment.
Mummy reasoned, papa reasoned, and nurse, who had by this time recovered
her Institutional serenity, spoke soothingly: but all to no avail.
Teddy continued to scream, to lose his breath, and then roar with
renewed vigour when he had got it again.
He really made a great to-do.
Finally papa and mummy departed in despair. Nurse went on packing, and
Girzie, who had been listening at the end of the passage with her hand
against her heart, came in and took the tired, miserable little figure
into her kind strong arms and sat down on a chair.
"Eh, Master Teddy, and what'll the soldiers be thinkin' this night, to
hear such an awfu' stramash in this respectable house ... an' both the
windows open? They'll be fair affrontet to think the young gentleman
they thought such a heap on could cry like a randy wife. They puir
soldiers won't know what to make of it at all, at all."
And Girzie shook her head as though overcome with care.
Teddy sat up and stared at her, and though his breath still came in sobs
he made no noise.
"Will they mind, Girzie?" he asked anxiously. "Will they 'eally mind?"
"Mind!" Girzie repeated. "Mind! They'll just be that upset--and you
almost like one o' them."
"Colin Dougal's broken his leg."
"Well, he'll get over that. My brother broke his leg at the football,
and look at him now!"
"But we're going away, Girzie, ... and I haven't said good-bye to
nobody, not to your Colin Dougal nor no one."
"Never fear but he'll see ye to say good-bye--but not if you cry--an'
you going to be a grand officer gentleman some day. Soldiers don't cry,
laddie. It would be the very last thing they'd think of doing."
"Not if they're hurted in their hearts?--nor never?"
"Not that any other person could see or hear them, you may depend on
that. And you mustn't cry either, any way not so loud that folk could
hear ye right across the Esplanade. Listen, laddie, we'll no forget
you. My brother's just fair taken up wi' you, and he's sent you
this--for a bit keepsake. It's one o' his buttons made into a
safety-pin, and when you're a wee thing bigger you'll wear it to hold
down your tie ... if nurse'll let you," she added hastily, with an
anxious glance at nurse, who continued to pack in absorbed silence.
Eagerly Teddy untied the little packet, and there was a real soldier's
button mounted as a safety-pin.
"When can I have a tie?" he asked eagerly.
Nurse came over to them and stood looking down at the little pin. Her
face softened. "I've got one rather like that, myself," she said. "You
can fasten it in your blouse whether you have a tie or not. No one
would notice."
"Can I wear it always?" he asked.
"Yes, if you like," nurse said graciously, "and perhaps it will help you
to remember not to cry when you fall down."
Girzie said nothing, but she fastened the brooch so that the button
shone resplendent just above the ribbons that tied Teddy's sailor
blouse.
"I will remember," he said solemnly.
"Are you sorry you were so naughty?" nurse asked, ever desirous to
improve the occasion.
"No," said Teddy firmly. "I hate Kingussie."
But after all he didn't hate Kingussie. He would have liked it immensely
but that it rained nearly all the time. July seemed to have used up all
the nice weather, and August was very cold and wet. He got one chill on
the top of another, and sneezed and snuffled, and snuffled and sneezed,
and lost all the pretty pink colour in his cheeks that he had gained in
Edinburgh.
Kingussie is a beautiful place with woods and streams and a glorious
golf links covered with short springy turf. Their lodgings were right
on the top of a hill, and the view from the windows was very lovely, but
even the loveliest view palls when it can only be seen through a veil of
driving rain.
Towards the end of their stay Teddy alarmed his family by falling really
ill. The local doctor took a gloomy view of his case, and talked of
unripe blackberries and appendicitis. Papa thereupon carried the whole
family back to Edinburgh before the end of the month. This time they
stayed at the Caledonian Hotel, where the noise of Princes Street and
the constant trains tried papa even more than the infernal bugles in
Ramsay Gardens.
A great doctor, who had not yet started for his holiday, was consulted
about Teddy, and he was even graver than the doctor up in Kingussie, and
said there must be an operation at once.
That was a puzzling day for Teddy.
He was kept in bed till evening, and nurse and everybody were
extraordinarily kind to him.
Then mummy came and sat beside him and held his hand, and told him that
he was to go that night to another house, and that the next day the
great doctor would do something for him that would make him quite well.
"Why can't he do it here?" Teddy asked.
It seemed that people didn't have these things done in hotels; that
doctors were particular men who liked to make people well in specially
chosen houses called Nursing Homes, and that Teddy was to go to one of
those homes that very night in a taxi-cab.
"Will my nurse come?" he asked anxiously.
"I will come," said mummy, and her voice sounded as if she, too, had got
one of the Kingussie colds.
"Not nurse," he repeated, rather puzzled. "Who will dress me?"
"There are lots of nice nurses in the Home who can do that, but you
won't be dressed just at first, you know. The doctor will want to keep
you in bed a little while after the operation."
"What's a operation? What's it do to you?"
But this mummy did not seem able to explain very clearly, and Teddy
began to feel rather doubtful about the whole thing.
"Will it hurt?" he asked at last.
"Not at the time, my precious," said mummy, "but afterwards it may. I'm
afraid it will, rather. I'm afraid it may hurt a good deal. But you
will try to be brave. I know you will be brave."
"A bave--Bittish--officer----" Teddy muttered. Then, turning his big,
bright eyes upon his mother, he asked eagerly: "Can I wear my button?"
Mummy did not understand, but nurse did, and when it was all explained
he was assured that he should wear his button.
Then they dressed him, and nurse packed a little suit-case, with Colin
Dougal in it, and all his new pyjamas and his dressing-gown, and he and
Mummy went alone together to that strange house full of nurses.
A great many odd things happened that night, and Teddy simply couldn't
have borne the strangeness of it all if his button had not been fastened
on the pocket of the jacket of his pyjamas: they were real pyjamas, two
garments, not baby ones fastened together.
He didn't sleep very well that night, but as often as he woke up he
touched his button and repeated to himself "Guadaloupe, Martinique,
Selingapatam," which are the first three of the long list of battles
fought by the Black Watch. Girzie's brother could say them all, and
Teddy loved to hear him roll them out in his strong Scottish voice, and
tried to learn them himself, but they are mostly very long names, and
only the first three remained in his mind.
Every one was most kind, but it was depressing not to have any
breakfast. Mummy's cold seemed to get worse, and one of the nurses
suggested that it would be better if she did not come as far as the
operating-room lest she should give it to Teddy.
His heart was thumping in his ears. He kissed mummy, he kissed Colin
Dougal, who simpered sweetly as usual (his leg hardly showed at all) and
was quite unmoved; and then, with lips that trembled, he whispered "Bave
Bittish officer" to himself over and over again.
He put one hand into that of the kind nurse, and held his button with
the other, and together they went down a long passage into a room that
was walled and floored with white tiles. It had no chairs in it, only
tables, one of them long and narrow and high, right in the middle of the
room. Two doctors were waiting for them, and the one Teddy had seen at
the hotel had his coat off as if he was going to play some game. He
looked very kindly at Teddy as they came in. "You're a man," he said.
"I can see that."
"I sall not ky," Teddy said in rather a shaky voice. "I sall not ky,
because I'm going to be a soldier, and they don't, you know."
"I guessed that, the minute I saw you," said the doctor. "We like
soldiers here, they get well extra quick. Up with you, and you mustn't
mind when we put that funny thing over your face."
Teddy lay down on the high narrow table. He looked up anxiously at the
doctor he didn't know. "You won't take my button away, will you, not
when you make me go to sleep?"
"Keep a tight hold of it," said the doctor, "and you'll find it there
when you wake up. No one would dream of touching it."
A soft rubber mask was pressed on Teddy's face; it was not pleasant, but
it did not hurt. Then came a roaring in his ears like the burn at
Kingussie when it had rained more than usual.
"A--bave Bittish--Guadaloupe, Martinique----"
The burn had swept little Teddy away into oblivion, but even there the
small hand was closed tightly over the soldier's button.
That night the doctor congratulated papa both upon the entire success of
the operation and on the splendid military training he had given his
little son.
*XVIII*
*PAUL AND THE PLAYWRIGHT*
"I was eight yesterday," said Paul to Thor, "so this week's different.
I'm different. I'm older--five years older than you, dear, though you
are so big."
Thor wagged his tail and looked sympathetic. A deerhound contrives to
express more by his looks than most humans, and Paul talked so
continually to Thor that the great dog always seemed to understand.
"So," Paul continued, "I think it's time we went about a bit and looked
for an adventure--like _him_, you know. We've been awfully good for
ever so long. You haven't stole anything, nor chased the sheep, nor ate
anybody's slipper, and I haven't gone off for the day, or smacked Lucy,
or read a book at meals. We've been sort of saints, and it's time we
did something, or we'll be turning into kind of angels--and they always
die, you know, and we've no time for that: we've got ever such a deal to
see to. Come on, my dear, nobody wants us. Let's walk and walk till we
find somethin' instastin'."
Paul wasted no time in preparations. He didn't even wait to put on his
boots. He was already equipped with his favourite weapon, a smooth
roller-like piece of wood about a foot long, which had originally been
used as a support for photographs. They had been rolled round it for
postal purposes. Paul annexed it when he was about three, christened it
his "chuncheon" (in those days "r's" were a difficulty,) and had
treasured it ever since.
Once Dorcas, the under-nurse, tidied it away in her excess of zeal, when
his grief was so uncontrollable that the whole household turned out to
hunt for it, and it was finally rescued from the dustbin by cook.
Before setting out he would fain have divested himself of his smock, but
a smock is a tiresome garment securely fastened at the back by means of
treacherous little loops and buttons, quite too complex to be
successfully tackled by the wearer. He did his best, however, to turn
it into a doublet by tying a piece of string as tightly as possible
round his waist, and through the string he thrust his trusty
"chuncheon." He pulled his dilapidated cotton hat well over his eyes,
and, lest any of the authorities should look out of the window and
inquire his intentions, he set off down the drive very slowly, as though
bound for nowhere in particular.
Nurse saw him strolling towards the gate, but that was nothing; he was
always strolling about the garden with Thor--the only wonder was that
some five other dogs had not already joined them.
Mrs. Button at the lodge saw him go by as she was hanging out sheets on
the line, and they "changed the weather and passed the time of day," but
she only thought he was going across to the village shop for something,
so she was not curious or suspicious either.
At the "Cat and Compasses" Paul stopped. Mr. Mumford, the landlord, was
standing in the doorway leaning on a hoe. They greeted each other
suitably, and Paul remarked, "Miss Goodlake's stopped in bed. She's got
a headache----"
"Sorry to 'ear it, I'm sure," Mr. Mumford replied sympathetically.
"Per'aps the sun 'ave been a bit too strong for she."
"Janey and Fiammetta," Paul continued, unconcerned as to the causes of
Miss Goodlake's headache, "are doing their lessons alone. They're
hearing each other, and they said I disturbed them, so Thor and I've
come off together."
He paused and looked expectantly at Mr. Mumford, as though waiting for a
suggestion of some sort.
Mr. Mumford is shaped rather like a pair of bellows with two substantial
legs instead of one slim one. He completely filled his own doorway, and
perspiring and benevolent, looked down at Paul.
"I wish as I could ast you to come in and set a bit, Master Paul," he
said apologetically, "but my missus she be a-cleanin', and when a woman
gets a-cleanin', the 'ouse beant no place for the likes of we. Not a
moment's peace or quiet to be 'ad. _You_ knows what 'a' be, doan't 'ee,
Master Paul?"
Here Mr. Mumford winked at Paul, who wagged his head sympathetically as
the summer stillness was broken by the clashing of pails, the sound of
falling brooms, and a strident voice exclaimed "Sammle! you get along
down garden an' weed them there parsnips. That bed be disgrace to
be'old. You take 'oe along; be off now, don't 'ee stand gossipin'
there, ye lazy varmint, you!"
With a groan Mr. Mumford seized the hoe, turned back into the bar, and
disappeared from view. Paul, congratulating Thor on the fact that
neither of them had a missus who insisted on the weeding of parsnips on
such a hot morning, strolled through the village. It was not yet ten
o'clock, and no one was to be seen. All the women were busy indoors,
the men at work. The sky was blue, the sun was hot, and a ribbon of
white road lay before them "beckoning and winding." So he and Thor set
off at a good pace, and Paul muttered as he went, "He would have given
his housekeeper and his niece for a fair opportunity of kicking the
traitor Galabon," adding thoughtfully, "They'd be about as bad as a
missus, I expect."
Of course the quotation came from the Book of the Moment, which, just
then, happened to be Don Quixote. He had found the Mad Knight in the
attic, an old translation in four volumes, published in 1810, with a map
and many steel engravings. He read it right through with his usual
absorbed interest, but expressed regret that there was such "an awful
lot about lovers and that." The Don's passion for the peerless Dulcinea
he did not attempt to understand, and the long love stories of other
people interspersed throughout bored him. But the adventures thrilled
him, and Sancho Panza's was a character that he got on terms with at
once. There was something dear and familiar about the sturdy Sancho:
something of Mr. Mumford.
For although, so far as Paul knew, Mr. Mumford never went further afield
than Garchester, still he was confident that, did occasion arise, Mr.
Mumford would not fail him. Paul often pictured himself, attended by
this faithful henchman, riding forth on two of his father's best
hunters, to seek their fortunes in an unknown world.
It is true that he had never in so many words mooted the idea to Mr.
Mumford in any of their more intimate conversations, but he felt assured
that Mr. Mumford would never suffer him to set out alone and unaided.
He was, perhaps, a thought disappointed that this boon companion had not
suggested going with him that very morning, but he acquitted him of all
intentional disloyalty, when he reflected on the compelling qualities of
the voice that haled the unwilling Sammle to the parsnip bed. He was
sure Mr. Mumford would have preferred to accompany him--which is quite
likely.
It was impossible to be Don Quixote without an attendant; so, somewhat
regretfully, Paul fell back upon the beloved Boots, the resourceful and
ever-conquering third son of his favourite Fairy Book.
Here, Thor was quite in the picture.
It is true that in _Tales from the Norse_ there isn't much about dogs.
Horses play all the larger parts, but "lots of animals come in," and
Paul liked that. "After all," he remarked complacently to Thor, "we
shan't have to keep on being in love on such a hot morning."
Paul's view of love-making strongly resembled that of cook, who, when
she caught Greenwood, the groom, kissing the kitchenmaid, boxed their
several ears, but related the incident quite dispassionately to mother,
concluding her recital with the remark, "I don't hold with it myself,
but there--I suppose it's pleasing to some."
Paul, too, was quite ready to allow that it might be "pleasing to some";
but his mood that morning was not attuned to the contemplation of
transcendantly beautiful ladies. He pined for the society of a
like-minded bachelor, a jolly bachelor of sociable habits, who would
understand and sympathise with a desire to be free for a while from the
tyranny of the tempestuous petticoat.
So they strolled along in the middle of the winding road for nearly a
couple of miles, then an open gate into an unfamiliar field invited
them, and, they went in and crossed it. Paul climbed and Thor leapt the
gate into the next. There were sheep in that field, but Thor resisted
temptation, and rested quietly with his master under the shade of an
elm. On again across more fields, meeting with no adventures
whatsoever. All the trolls, giants, witches, lions, pirates, knights
and princesses seemed to have remained indoors or underground that
morning.
A man shouted at them once, but he was too far off to discover whether
his words were friendly or the reverse. Previous experience, however,
led Paul to believe they were in some way "be off out of that-ish!" and
he hurried away in an opposite direction. His feet ached and the soles
of his shoes felt very thin. He decided that the moment they struck the
road again he'd make for the very first house in sight and ask for some
water for both of them.
At last they reached a field bordered by a road. They pushed through a
gap in the hedge and found themselves not far from four cross roads and
a church. Paul made for the church, for as a rule where churches are,
houses are not far off--and, sure enough, right opposite the church gate
was one that led into somebody's drive with an exceedingly trim lodge on
the left-hand side.
He paused, undecided for a moment whether to go round to the back door,
which would be certain to be open, and ask for water from the lady of
the lodge, or go right up the drive and see what the people of the house
were like.
If he went to the back and rapped with his knuckles a woman would come
out--he was sure of that. She might be washing; she might be displeased
at the interruption; she would be almost certain to disapprove of Thor.
He decided to go up to the house.
Here, as everywhere else that morning, there was not a soul in sight and
it was very still. The sun was high in the heavens, and the great lawns
in front of the house stretched almost shadowless--green and shaven and
smooth. It was a pretty house: irregular, long and low, covered with
creepers, with sloping roofs, clustering chimneys, and kindly-looking
gables--a restful house, Paul thought wistfully. Would they let him go
in and sit a bit?
The open, front door was hooded by a deep sunblind, but he peeped
underneath and beheld a cool dark hall, absolutely untenanted; and here,
too, the same soft, all-pervading silence. It was very hot out on the
gravel drive; there seemed no shadows anywhere. Even a cedar-tree on the
far side of a wide lawn, though it looked dark and cool, threw hardly
any shade.
Thor's tongue was hanging out, and he turned his beautiful grave eyes on
his master with the clear question, "How long are we to stand here?"
Presently Paul became conscious of a faint sound: a sharp, irregular,
clipped sort of sound, that was neither a tap nor a click, but a cross
between the two.
The country-bred child is a connoisseur in sounds, and here was one
quite new to him. Thor, too, heard it, and looked inquiring.
They moved away in its direction and came upon another door. This, too,
had its sunblind. This, too, was open, and the curious sound was coming
from the room within that door.
Paul dived underneath the sunblind and Thor followed him.
They found themselves in what appeared to be a small square porch
leading to the room within. It contained nothing but a fixed basin with
a tap and a towel-rail. Here at all events was water.
Paul ran some into the basin, and Thor put his paws on the edge, reared
his great body, sloped his head, and drank greedily. And all the time
that curious noise continued, that indescribable irregularly recurrent
sound, that was half tap, half click, with a mysterious scrape occurring
every thirty seconds or so. When Thor had finished his drink, Paul
formed his own hands into a cup and drank from them; he whispered to
Thor to lie down, and stood himself in the open doorway leading to the
room whence the sound came.
He forgot how his feet ached, he forgot how desperately hungry he was,
for he felt that, at last, he had come up with the adventure he had
been, questing all that long hot morning.
Never had he beheld such a delightful room. It was large and high, with
two big wide-open windows, which, however, were not like ordinary
windows, for they started ever so far from the ground, like those in a
studio. The panelling, where it could be seen for books, was white; but
there was no glare, for books were everywhere, books in many-hued
bindings, making irregular patches of subdued colour. Nearly all looked
as though they had sat long in their shelves, and wore the pleasant
faded tints that time brings to things cared-for and well-loved. There
was one line of vivid red that Paul recognised with a little thrill (for
we had it at home) as the "Elephant" edition of "_The man who made
Mowgli._" But these were on a high shelf, and the steps were too far
off for him to drag them over without making a noise. Besides, for
once, it was not the books that most interested Paul; it was what he
afterwards described as "a kind-of-man-ness" about the room.
"It was all such a jolly muddle and so comfortable."
If there were many books there were even more papers. He didn't mean
newspapers and magazines, though there were plenty of them--it was the
quantities of letters that impressed him. Never had he seen so many
letters, not even at Christmas. They were strewed about everywhere, and
on the floor behind the great, double, knee-hole table, an open trunk
was lying full of them--stuffed in pell-mell, anyhow.
All the furniture was big and solid and comfortable. There were two
pianos--"a big one and a little one"; a huge sofa that invited repose on
the part of the slothful; great, deep chairs; steady tables; nothing to
upset anywhere; no tiresome "frippy" things.
And seated at the knee-hole table was a man who wore spectacles: a
biggish man going bald, with grey hair, grey moustache, and short,
closely-trimmed grey beard. Paul decided that he liked the look of him,
and that there was something familiar in his appearance; that he had met
this man before somewhere in a story. He knitted his brows and thought
deeply, never taking his eyes off him, but he couldn't place him.
Nevertheless he was sure of him. He was one of the understanding. "He
didn't look a 'run-away-and-play' sort of a man," Paul said afterwards,
"nor the sort who says 'my boy,' and he didn't ever--not once."
It was he who was making that queer noise. He was playing with both
hands on a kind of instrument.
Paul accepted the noise as some novel and not very agreeable form of
music. He guessed the man was musical from the fact that he had two
pianos. But why, having two real pianos, he should play on that horrid
little one, puzzled Paul extremely. It was not nearly so pleasing to
the ear as one he himself possessed, which you played by thumping the
keys with a hammer made of cork. It was possible to get some sort of
tune out of that.
Click-click--click-click-click---- the man could play very fast. He
used both hands, and was so absorbed in the tune he was trying to make
that he never noticed Paul. He appeared to change his music very often,
and it seemed rather a business to get it fixed in the stand, and one
thing that interested Paul was that when he chose a new piece he always
put in a black sheet of paper behind it. Just inside the door Paul
stood gazing absorbedly. Had the man looked up he must have seen him.
"I'll wait till he's finished practising," Paul resolved, "then we'll
talk."
The door was at the side, not in the middle of the end wall, and that
wall was entirely covered by a huge bookcase--by stretching out his hand
he could have taken a book from the shelves, and he was greatly tempted.
But he thought it would hardly be polite, as the man was there. Had the
room been empty he would have had no such scruples.
He was tired, so he sat down on the floor and leant against the lintel
of the open door.
"I wish he'd play a tunier tune," he thought.
Thor lay full length in the little room with the basin, his nose between
his paws, his speaking eyes fixed on his master. There was no sound at
all except that eternal click-click.
"I kept thinking," Paul said afterwards, "how splendid it would have
been to play 'Camptown Races' against Harry. I'd have had the biggest
piano and drowned him." Harry could play "Cock o' the North" on the
black notes. Paul could thump out "Camptown Races" with one finger!
Occasionally, when they got the chance, they would perform against each
other, one on the schoolroom the other on the drawing-room piano. Paul
was envious of Harry's achievement, but the black notes were beyond him,
and "Cock o' the North" skips about so.
If you start "Camptown Races" on F natural it's all plain sailing; the
same note is repeated so often that it is not difficult.
Paul stretched out his legs luxuriously and pictured the amazing row he
and Harry could produce on those two pianos in what he was pleased to
call their "duet."
Presently the man stopped playing on his unmelodious instrument and,
looking over his spectacles across the room towards the door, saw Paul.
He immediately took off his glasses, and his eyes were blue and keen and
kind.
Paul scrambled to his feet. "How d'you do?" he said politely. "I just
called in as I was passing."
The man looked rather astonished. "Where were you going?" he asked.
Paul came slowly across the room until he stood close by the big desk.
"Nowhere in particular. We've just come out for the day."
"We!" the man repeated. "Are there any more of you?" And he looked
rather anxious.
"Only Thor," Paul answered reassuringly. "He's sitting in the little
room with the basin--I hope you don't mind. We both drank some water,
but we didn't wash--not without leave. May Thor come in?"
"He'd better, I think," said the man.
"You may come in, my dear," Paul said, quietly, without raising his
voice, and Thor, large, deliberate, and graceful, strolled into the
room, looked inquiringly at the man, wagged his tail gently, and came
and stood by his master.
"This is Thor," said Paul. "Do you mind him?"
"Not a bit!" said the man. "I like him."
"Sometimes," Paul remarked, "people are afraid he'll upset things; he's
so large, you know.... But it wouldn't be easy to upset things here.
Would you mind telling me why you kept playing that funny tune? Do you
think it's pretty?"
"Tune?" the man repeated. "When?"
"Just a minute ago--ever since I came in, _and_ outside. I heard you;
it's what made me come. I couldn't think what it was."
"Can you read?" asked the man.
"Read!" Paul exclaimed. "I should think so; years and years ago."
The man handed him one of the pages he had been playing.
"That's what I was doing," he said.
"Why, it's print!" cried Paul.
"Exactly; nicer than hand-writing, isn't it?"
Paul's quick eyes devoured the page.
"Like Shakespeare," he added.
The man laughed. "I only wish it was," he said.
"It's a play, anyway, isn't it?"
"It is."
"And you've been making it up as you go along?"
"Well, hardly that, but I scribble it down first, you know."
"Does it spell for you?" Paul asked breathlessly.
"No, it doesn't, bother it---that's where it's rather sniffy sometimes."
"When I'm grown up," Paul said solemnly, "and rich--I hope I'll be
rich--I'll have one of those, but I'll get one that does the spelling as
well. I suppose they _are_ made."
"I haven't come across one yet," said the man; "when I do I shall buy it
at once----"
"And you'll tell me, won't you?" Paul said eagerly.
"I'll let you know very first thing!"
"Would you like me to read some more of your interesting play?" he
asked. "I can't quite make out what it's all about beginning in the
miggle like this."
"I don't think I'd read it just now," said the man. "You see, I want to
talk to you. I want to know all sorts of things."
"I came in on purpose to have a chat," Paul remarked genially. "Do you
mind if I sit down? My feet do ache so--Lie down, my dear; the
gentleman doesn't mind you."
The man pulled up a comfortable chair for Paul. Thor lay down at his
feet, and then their host, in his chair by the desk, swung round and
faced them.
"I suppose now," said Paul, "you haven't got a missus, have you?"
"What makes you think that?" asked the man.
"Well, you see, there's such a muddle of papers, isn't there? She'd
never let you keep it like that. Mr. Mumford says his missus is always
cleanin' and sortin' and putting things away. Not," he added
truthfully, "that Mr. Mumford gets many letters--I've never seen any in
his house."
"It's not always like this," pleaded the man. "Sometimes it's awfully
tidy."
"Oh, but I like it like this," Paul exclaimed eagerly. "Have you a
housekeeper and a niece by any chance? Do they tidy for you?"
"Why a housekeeper _and_ a niece?" asked the man.
"He had, you know--Don Quixote. I've been playing at him a good deal
lately."
"Do you generally play at the people you read about?"
"Always," Paul said solemnly. "What would be the good of reading about
them else?"
"I suppose it's a good plan," the man said musingly; "it must lead you
into many adventures."
"It does," Paul said solemnly. "_This_ is one of them, and you, I
suppose, are a sort of magician, since you make plays. Do people
_really_ act them?"
"Not as often as I could wish," the man said, "... but it's great fun
all the same."
"Do _you_ play at being the people?"
The man shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said sadly. Then more to
himself than to Paul--"That's the hardest thing of all to do; to look on
is much easier."
"I don't care for looking on," said Paul decidedly. "I want to _be_ it
all the time."
"I suppose we all do to begin with, and then ... we find out that
lookers-on see most of the game."
"I don't care much about seeing games. I'd rather play them; it's much
more fun really. Truly it is," he said earnestly.
"Doubtless you are right," the man said courteously, "but, you see, we
don't all care for the same games."
"When I'm grown up--and rich," Paul announced, "I shall write books----"
"You're wise to be rich first," murmured the man.
"I shall write books," Paul continued, "with that little piano, and when
I'm not writing I shall play at being all the people in my books--one
after the other--at least, all the nice ones, who are successful."
"Are the nice ones always successful?"
"In the end, always. Of course, they have trials and things."
"What about Don Quixote?" asked the man.
Paul looked unhappy. "It worries me," he said. "It worries me
dreadfully. He was so nice and so silly and"--the corners of Paul's
mouth went down--"and ... he died in the end."
"I quite agree with you," said the man. "It _is_ worrying. Don't let us
talk about it."
Thor suddenly sat up on his haunches and tried to lick Paul's face.
"You seem," said Paul, "to be very fond of reading, you've such a
splendid lot of books. Do you ever, by any chance, read at meals?"
Paul held him with stern, searching eyes.
"Only when I'm alone," the man said primly.
"Never when people are there?" Paul asked, fixing him with a gaze that
seemed to search his very soul.
"Well ... only at tea-time ... occasionally.... Why do you ask?"
"Because," Paul answered, "they're all so down on me for doing it. I
always want to read at tea-time, and they won't let me. Now I shall tell
them you do it; that'll surprise 'em."
"Oh, don't!" the man urged, "don't give me away. They'd be so shocked."
"Of course, I shan't say anything if you'd rather I didn't," Paul
remarked magnanimously, "but I thought if I just mentioned a grown-up
gentleman did it they couldn't be so down on me! ... But I truly won't
if you'd rather not. I guessed you did it the minute I saw you."
"I'm quite certain neither of us ought to," said the man, "but it _is_ a
temptation ... when the conversation is dull."
"It's often jolly dull," Paul groaned--and at that moment a gong
sounded.
"That's for luncheon," said the man. "Are you hungry?"
"I'm starving, and do you think there will be any little bits for Thor?"
"Sure of it," said the man. "Would you like to wash? And do you
require any ... assistance?"
The man looked down at Paul; he had to look rather a long way, for Paul
was very small for his age. Perhaps it was that made him ask. Anyway
Paul was not offended.
"I can wash all right," he said, "but nurse generally gives my hair a
bit of a do--but if you don't mind I don't."
They went up some steps and through a glass door into another room--more
like other people's rooms this--tidy and arranged like other
drawing-rooms, then across the hall to the dining-room, where an elderly
parlour-maid with a kind face put a fat book on Paul's chair to make it
high enough.
He was desperately hungry, and the lunch was very good, but he couldn't
have enjoyed it as much if the kind-looking parlour-maid had not brought
a big plate of scraps for Thor, and spread a duster under it.
Paul liked his host. He liked the sense of good fellowship, the absence
of patronage, the unusual reticence that abstained from questions as to
why he was there at all.
"Do you know my father?" he asked presently.
"I'm afraid not," said the man, "but if you tell me his name I dare say
I may have heard of him."
"He's not at all like me," Paul announced. "He's awfully sensible, every
one says that, but he's a most good-natured man and kind as kind.
Surely you must know Squire Staniland?"