_A man may build his house on what he wills,
A child with sand her painted bucket fills._
Diana wrote to her uncle and said poor Shan’t wanted to go to the
seaside, but Aunt Elsie could not manage to take her there. Poor little
Shan’t! She did so love the sea, and her legs were so pale!
“Selfish woman,” said Marcus; “why couldn’t she make an effort?” To
some children the seaside was an absolute necessity. If she wouldn’t he
would, and he wrote and said so.
From then onwards, until the day came on which he took Shan’t to the
seaside, he lay awake at night pondering on many things—buttons and
strings—hooks and eyes—strings and buttons—hooks and strings—buttons
and eyes—and he wondered if there were any place at which an
uncle—anxious to learn—could be instructed in the dressing and
undressing of a small niece on the sands—under the shadow of an
upturned boat—on the beach of a favourite watering-place? Would it
be possible to go to a watering-place that was not a favourite? Then
as he fell asleep there rose before his closing eyes the vision of a
house on wheels—cream to palish pink in colour—which boasted of two
side windows and dropped steps from its front door. He had seen such
buildings years ago—bathing-machines! And in a bathing-machine the
uncle found shelter. They are safer, and wiser and better things, than
aunts. Where Aunt Elsie might have helped him, the bathing-machine got
him out of a difficulty, and protected him.
Marcus Maitland had forgotten what the seaside was like. It compared
in no way with the shores of a sea loch in Scotland—where the peace
and beauty are indescribable; where he had many a time watched the
swift sweep of the gulls on the wing—the diving of terns. He had seen
seals swimming about—wise old men of the sea. He had heard, up on the
hill, the croak of the raven; had seen the shadow on the hillside of an
eagle’s wings: and there were no babies. An uncle could sit at peace:
with no violent aunt in the background. But a favourite watering-place!
It was hotter than he had remembered it—more glaring: the people on the
beach were less attractive: the babies less pink and less plentiful
than the advertisements had promised. Not less plentiful in a way,
but they did not stretch right across the beach away to the horizon,
hand in hand, nor did they smile at him an invitation to arise and
bathe. They squatted in groups about the sand, making castle puddings.
Nurses knelt beside them. Nannies, with rugs and bags and baskets,
and bottles—and mackintoshes even, and umbrellas, on hot days; and
large quantities of white needle-work—garments for the children. It
distressed Marcus to think that all this time there was nothing being
made for Shan’t. All along the beach, so far as he could see, nurses
sewed. Her wardrobe would get terribly out of date. But she didn’t seem
to mind; she was very happy. The tucking-in of petticoats had been less
difficult than Marcus had imagined: in fact he began to wonder if these
things came naturally to men, as they were supposed to come to women.
Perhaps in all men there lay dormant the paternal instinct. Certainly,
whether the instinct were there or not, he took to this sort of thing
amazingly naturally. That he looked the part he never thought. He knew
himself to be an uncle, so never thought of himself as anything else.
A mother and daughter began to take notice of Shan’t. One morning they
smiled at her and Shan’t smiled back, all over her small person. There
was no exclusiveness about this, the younger of his nieces. Diana did
at times put her small head up in the air and walk as though the whole
world belonged to her—but Shan’t—never! She belonged to the whole
world—quite another thing. The next morning the mother smiled again
and the daughter dropped her book. Whereas Shan’t would promptly have
buried it in the sand, Marcus felt bound to pick it up and restore it
to its glowing owner. He was thanked by the young woman with a warmth
that surprised him. Her voice throbbed with thankfulness, so much so
that he wished he had looked at the title of the book. Was the tribute
to the author?
The following morning Marcus would have chosen another place in the
sun, but Shan’t liked her old haunts—there was a darlin’ crab—she had
promised it to come back—faithfully. Uncle Marcus sought to assure her
that where a crab was one day, it was not bound to be the next. The sea
took it out—right out!
“Right out—right out,” said Shan’t, and she looked so like crying over
the departure of the crab seawards that he made for the spot where it
had been, and, of course (so hard on uncles this sort of thing!) there
was a crab, “in the very same place”—so Shan’t said—“and,” she added,
“it was a darlin’ and it looked so pleased to see me—it smiled!”
This kind of thing, too, it was that distressed Marcus. Ought he, as
uncle, to tell her that crabs did not smile, or should he leave it
alone. “It’s a darlin’,” she repeated. She stood looking at him in
grave displeasure—looked at him under her eyelashes. He had lied. The
sea had not taken her darlin’ crab away. She knew it hadn’t. The sea
had been falsely accused. Shan’t was ever on the side of the injured.
The mother and daughter came along and found Marcus standing thus being
judged of Shan’t, and this time they both smiled.
“What a darling!” said the younger of the two women, and Shan’t turned
and frowned at her. “Aren’t you?” asked the girl.
“No,” said Shan’t.
“What’s your name?”
“Shan’t-if-I-don’t-want-to.”
“Oh, don’t, please, if you don’t want to.”
“It’s that,” said Shan’t.
“What?”
“Shan’t-if-I-don’t—want—to.”
“I don’t want you to,” said the girl with infinite patience—maternal
patience, if Marcus could but have appreciated it. The mother looked to
see if it were lost upon the man—and saw it was lost. Therefore she sat
down beside Marcus, and Shan’t and the girl—friends by this time—were
told to run and play.
The mother opened her sunshade and turned a deeply sympathetic face
towards a very miserable and bewildered Marcus. This wasn’t the kind of
woman with whom he was at ease. She made him shy, which was a thing he
was not accustomed to be. He made other people shy as a rule.
“She’s a dear little child,” said the unwelcome woman.
“She is,” said Marcus. “Do you mind if I smoke?” He had found smoking
as efficacious against some kinds of women as it is said to be against
some kinds of insects—what kinds has not as yet been specified.
“I love it—my daughter is so fond of it.” Seeing Marcus’s look of
indifference, perhaps of repugnance—she could not tell which—she added
for safety, “The smell of it.”
“Umph,” said Marcus.
“How old is she?”
“Your daughter?” asked Marcus.
And the mother laughed. “How amusing you are! And yet you don’t feel
it, do you? you don’t look it.”
“Umph!”
“My daughter and I said how sad you looked—your whole life, we could
see, is centred in that child.”
“Not entirely,” said Marcus, thinking of his collections.
“No? But still for a man alone it is a great responsibility.”
“I’ve got some one with me, thank you, to help—a housemaid, her
father’s a coast-guardsman.”
“Of course, yes.”
“It’s the buttons and things, on the beach.”
“Of course, yes. Is she like her mother?”
“Like her mother? Yes, I suppose she is—wider between the eyes,
perhaps—a little.”
“Ah, the tragedies of life!” A pause, then she added: “Was she taken
early?”
“Who?”
“Her mother—that sacred name.”
“Her mother is abroad.”
“Oh, really, I see, of course. We never thought of that. A man alone
with a child always suggests—”
“What?” He was really interested. How he appeared to others was a
subject that always held him.
“A widower—bereavement.”
“Oh, no, I’m not a widower, far from it—”
The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her
daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not
found a widower, they had found a bachelor, which is in some ways a far
better thing—
“Nice lady,” said Shan’t decisively, pouring sand from her spade on to
Marcus’s shoes.
“What did she talk about?” he asked.
“Cwabs.”
“What did she say about crabs?”
“She said—there was one called Penepoly—I think it was—and she was very
nice indeed—and she’s dead, so we buried her—and we aren’t goin’ to
be sad about it because it is happier for her, because her—husband is
dead too—and there aren’t any children—at least not many—There was lots
more, only I forget—she was very silly, really.”
“Am I silly, Shan’t?”
“Yes,” said Shan’t; then seizing him round the neck she ecstatically
hugged him.
After Shan’t’s prayers were said there lay a long evening before
Marcus. He made Shan’t’s going to bed as late as he dared with the
housemaid on the watch. It could hardly be made to last over seven
o’clock—and then it was over-late, so the housemaid said. Shan’t was
inclined to lengthen her day by means of inordinate praying. The
prayers ran on to an extraordinary length. Uncle Marcus could not know
that Aunt Elsie strictly limited the number of people prayed for.
When Shan’t got down to postmen what posted letters, and cwabs what
went to sea—and old gentlemen who hadn’t got any buns, and old ladies
who hadn’t got any cake—and po-or little children who hadn’t got any
bull’s-eyes, Uncle Marcus should have brought her up with a round turn;
but he let her wander on till she came to her darlin’ Aunt Elsie, when
he said it was time to stop. “One more, please,” said Shan’t; and she
shut her eyes tight and prayed: “Please God, give me a nice donkey ride
to-morrow morning at ten o’clock sharp.” She waited, then said, “Thank
you,” bowed, and turning to Marcus said triumphantly: “God says he
_will_.”
And Marcus gave her the nice donkey ride the next morning at ten
o’clock—sharp.
After Shan’t was in bed and asleep, Marcus took to walking on the
sea-front and there he met again the daughter of the mother. She was
certainly an attractive girl—and she said she found him sympathetic and
understanding. This was gratifying in the extreme to Marcus—few can
withstand so subtle a form of appreciation. He had imagined himself
unsympathetic outwardly, difficult to know; but at heart capable of
intense feeling. He is not the only man who has thus pictured himself.
Then he took to meeting the girl accidentally by day, surprising her
reading, or gazing out to sea, with the book on her lap upside down.
Her eyes were wonderfully expressive, full of a sadness she did not
feel. This she knew. Marcus did not.
In this manner, seeking to comfort where sorrow was not, but only
simple femininity, Marcus lost Shan’t. Hurriedly he sought her:
up and down the beach, stooping to inspect closely the faces of
bending babies, entirely forgetting, it seemed, the age and size of
Shan’t. As he rushed along the sea-front, he chanced upon an upturned
perambulator. It was in the charge of a small girl hardly bigger
than Shan’t, though possibly much older. She was groping in the
gutter, heedless of the baby’s perilous position. “’Ave you seen ’is
satisfoyer?” asked the small woman-child of Marcus. Marcus righted the
perambulator, rearranged the baby in the righted perambulator, and said
he had not seen the “satisfoyer.” But he searched for it, found it:
wiped it, and popped it into the baby’s mouth, just as any lamentably
ignorant nurse or mother or woman-child might have done. But he knew
better: even mere man knows what danger there lies to the future of
England in the snare of the “satisfoyer.” But Marcus was too busy to
think of the future of England and her citizens; he was frightfully
busy. He had just time to find the baby’s “satisfoyer,” and to find
the baby the ugliest he had ever seen, and was off on his search for
Shan’t. What should he say to Sibyl if he should fail to find her? To
that detestable aunt? To Diana?
He found Shan’t in the process of being converted, and she was enjoying
it immensely. Her eyes were cast heavenwards in an abandonment of
religious ecstasy: her mouth was rounded to its widest. She was
singing a hymn: sharing a hymn-book with a black man—not even a man
black in parts, as is commonly to be met at the seaside, but a real
black man.
Marcus watched in despair. For his niece he had ceased to exist—only as
part of this world had she known him. She was translated to another: a
world where the sands were more golden, the sea more glassy than they
could ever be here on earth.
Marcus waited. Waited until Shan’t, with a radiant smile, turned to the
black man, thanked him, folded her small hands, gloved in white cotton
gloves, the fingers of which turned up as only white cotton fingers
can, and gave herself up to the sermon.
“Poor devil!” murmured Marcus, perhaps at the thought of Shan’t’s
extreme fairness.
In the middle of the sermon the attention of Shan’t slackened: she
swallowed: she removed her gaze from the face of the preacher, just
to look around, to see, perhaps, if there were any little boys less
religious—or as religious—as herself, and her eyes met those of her
reproachful uncle. Hers straightway became fixed on that far-away
something. Things have—in the history of the world—looked as innocent
as she looked: but very few—among them puppies in chicken-yards. She
was absorbed in that far-away something—but what gave her away was the
pink flush which stole over her little face, then flooded it. Tears
gathered in her eyes. But she still gazed bravely—intently—absorbedly.
Marcus walked round, behind the crowd, stooped down behind her and
whispered. She rose, and putting her hand in his walked away with him.
“Did you like it, Shan’t?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I hadn’t got a hymn-book of my own.”
“So I supposed,” he said stiffly.
“_I_ turned over.”
“Did you? Did you like the preacher?”
“Yes. He was rather silly, really.” Shan’t’s usual summary, this.
“What did the preacher say?”
Shan’t hesitated—what _did_ he say? “He said I must love God—and not
eat any more apples.”
“Oh!” said Marcus, not recognizing in this brief summary the story of
the Garden of Eden. He didn’t believe “that aunt” would either.
“D’you think you’ll go to Heaven?” asked Shan’t cheerfully.
Marcus humbly answered that he hoped he might if he were very good.
“What will God call you?”
This Marcus didn’t know; couldn’t say; had never thought.
“‘Mis-ter Maitland’—or ‘Marcus’—which would you like best?”
Marcus thought—his Christian name was nicest—just as Shan’t said it.
“But the butler must say ‘Mister Maitland,’ mustn’t he?”
“What butler?”
“God’s butler,” said Shan’t, solemnly, rather overcome at the thought
of a personage so grand—so awe-inspiring.
“I don’t suppose God has a butler, Shan’t.”
“Don’t you? Who are the Pillars of God’s house, then? Nannie reads
about them—”
“Oh, I see.”
“There m-ust be, mustn’t there—because of Pillar?”
“Of course there must be.”
“Will you give Pillar up to God for his house—if God wanted him?”
“I suppose I should have to.”
“I expect he would do things for you—all the same, when you go to
Heaven, if God goes away for a few days—and other times too?”
“Who, Pillar?”
“Yes.”
“I expect he would.”
“He says you can’t do without him, so he’d have to.”
“Does he say that?” asked Marcus, feeling a glow of absurd thankfulness
permeating his being—
Shan’t nodded and said fervently that she liked Pillar. Marcus had
to assure her that he did, too, and there the matter ended—so far as
Shan’t was concerned; but not for Marcus. He wasn’t superstitious,
but he wished Shan’t hadn’t broached the subject of giving Pillar up
to any one. Existence without Pillar would be an impossibility. That
afternoon by letter Marcus raised the wages of Pillar five pounds a
year, and after listening to Shan’t’s prayers asking God to bless
Pillar, he wished he had made it ten pounds. It was disturbing. Life
generally was disturbing. An elderly woman in a bath-chair saw that
it was so, or guessed it rather than saw it. She was an adept at
guessing things. She had seen Marcus meet and walk away with the girl
with big brown eyes, which held tragedy in their depths. She could see
by the cut of Marcus’s clothes, by his shoes, all she wanted to know
of his circumstances in life. She guessed him to be a bachelor and
defenceless, because bored. This was not entirely astuteness on her
part; she had heard Shan’t call him “Uncle,” and it is only a bachelor
uncle who would take a small niece away with him, knowing nothing of
the dangers of so doing, and the difficulties. No married man would
attempt to do what it takes at least two women to do properly—judging
by the babies on the shore and their attendants.
So the next time Marcus passed the elderly woman in her bath-chair, she
smiled at him. Not as the other woman had smiled, hoping to attract
him, but knowing she would. He was attracted. He liked elderly women as
many bachelors do. They find in them a safe outlet.
“Come and talk to me,” said this one, and Marcus felt delighted to do
so. “What have you done with your little girl?” she asked.