doubt.
And it struck him dumb.
"I say," said Georgie, "are you angry?"
But he showed no anxiety on the point, merely beaming while the grown
man fought for words.
"Angry? No--no----"
And now he was fighting for the power of speech--fighting hot eyes and
twitching lips for his own manhood--and for the little impudent face
that would fill with fear if he lost. But he won.
"Of course I'm not angry; but"--for he must know for certain--"what's
your name?"
"Georgie."
"That's not all."
"Georgie Musk."
Carlton filled his lungs.
"And who sent you here, Georgie?"
"Nobody di'n't."
"Then how have you come?"
"By my own self, course."
"What! all the way from the Flint House? That's where you live, isn't
it?"
Carlton put the second question with sudden misgiving. The name was not
unique in that country; he might be mistaken after all. And already--in
these few moments--he could not bear the idea of being thus mistaken in
this sturdy, friendly, independent boy.
"Yes, that's where," said Georgie, nodding.
"Then what can have brought him here!"
"Well, you see," said Georgie, confidentially, "my lady taked me for a
walk----"
"Your lady?"
"And I wunned away."
"But who do you mean by your lady?"
"My lady," said Georgie, turning dense.
"Your governess?" guessed Carlton.
"Oh, my governess, my governess!" cried Georgie, roaring with laughter
because the word was new to him, but made a splendid expletive: "oh, my
governess, gwacious me!"
"Well, whoever it is," muttered Carlton, "she oughtn't to have lost you;
and you stay with me until she finds you."
"That's good," said Georgie, with conviction. "I liker stay wif you."
Carlton caught the child up suddenly, and swung him shoulder-high. What
a laugh he had! And what a firm boy, so heavy and straight and strong!
Carlton sat down in his barrow, taking the little fellow on his knee,
yet holding him at arm's length for self-control.
"How can you like being with a person you've never seen before?" asked
Carlton, tremulous again, for all his strength.
"'Cos I heard you makin' somekin," said Georgie, who was looking about
him. "What are you makin', I say?"
It was here that, without any particular provocation, Robert Carlton's
resolution suddenly failed him, so that he hugged and kissed the child,
in a sudden access of uncontrollable emotion. This, however, was as
suddenly suppressed. Georgie had wriggled from his knee; but instead of
running away (as the other feared for one breathless moment), he
continued looking about him as before, bored a little, but nothing more.
"What are you buildin', I say?" he now inquired.
"A church."
"What's a church?"
Carlton came straight to his feet.
"Do you never go to one?" he asked; but his tone was nearly all remorse.
"No, I never."
"Then have you never heard of God?"
And now the tone was his most determined one.
"Yes," said Georgie, subdued but not frightened.
"You are sure that you have been told about God?"
"Yes, sure."
"Who has taught you?"
"My lady and granny--not grand-daddy."
"You say your prayers to Him?"
"Yes, I always."
"Sure?"
"Yes, sure."
Carlton stood with heaving chest. He was spared something at last; his
cup was not to overflow after all. And, as he stood, the grass
whispered, and the rain came down.
Again Georgie was caught up, to be set down next instant in the shed;
but this time he was really offended.
"I don't want to come in," he whimpered. "I want to build wif your
bwicks. They're much, much bigger'n mine!"
"But it's raining, don't you see? It would never do for Georgie to get
wet."
"Oh, I wish I would play wif your bwicks!"
"Why, Georgie, you couldn't lift them; you're not strong enough."
"But I are, I tell you. I really are!"
"Here's one, then," said Carlton, who kept his misfits in the shed. "You
try."
Georgie did try. He rolled the stone over, though it was no small one;
lift it he could not.
"You see, it was heavier than you thought."
"'Cos never mind," coaxed Georgie, in another formula of his own; "you
carry it for me!"
"But it's raining, and we should both be wet through."
"'Cos _never_ mind!"
"But I do mind; and, what's more, everybody else would mind as well."
"Then what _shall_ we do?" cried Georgie, from his depths.
Carlton had no idea. But the boy was weary, and must be amused; that was
the first necessity; and he who had never laid himself out to conciliate
men must strain every nerve to please this little child. His eyes flew
round the shed. And there upon the shelf stood his gargoyles deep in
dust.
"Oh, what a funny old man!" cried Georgie. "Oh, ho, ho!"
But Carlton, in his ignorance of children, had over-estimated a strong
child's strength; the stone head slipped through the tiny hands,
narrowly missing the tiny toes; and when Georgie stooped and rolled it
over, it was seen that a terrible accident had really occurred.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried an alarming little voice, "Oh, he's broken his nose,
he's broken it to bits; oh, oh!"
Carlton made a dive for the other gargoyle; but this was a peculiarly
sinister face; and Georgie's tears only ran the faster.
"Oh, I don't like that one. It's a ho'ble face. I don't like it."
Carlton cast the thing from him, and at the same moment became and
looked inspired.
"Shall I make you a new face, Georgie? A better one than either of the
others?"
"Yes, do, I say! A new face! A new face!"
And shouts of delight came from the tear-stained one: such was the sound
that Gwynneth heard in the lane.
A very inspiration it proved. All unpractised in their earliest
accomplishment, the hard-worked hands had never been so deft before; nor
ever stone softer or chisel sharper than the first of each that could be
found. They were trembling, those tanned and twisted fingers, but that
only seemed to impart a nervous vigour to their touch. When the thing
had taken rough shape, and a deep curve or two suggested a whole head of
hair; when eyes and nose had come from the same sure delving, and the
mouth almost at a touch; then the mouth of Georgie, long open in mere
fascination, recovered its primary function, and yelled approval in
surprising terms.
"Oh, my Jove, my Jove!" he roared. "What a lovely, lovely, _lovely_
face! Oh, my Jove, I must show it to my lady!"
Carlton looked upon a baby face on fire with rapture; and for once no
dissimilar light shone upon his own.
"Will you--give me a kiss for it, Georgie?"
Without a word the little arms flew round a weatherbeaten neck that bent
to meet them, and the glowing cheeks buried themselves, voluntarily, in
the beard that had only hurt before; and not one kiss, but countless
kisses, were Georgie's thanks for the lump of sandstone that had grown
into a face before his eyes. And such was the scene whereon Gwynneth
Gleed arrived.
At first she drew back, hesitating in the rain, because neither of them
saw her, and she could not, could not understand! But her hesitation was
short-lived, or, rather, it had to be conquered and it was. So with
flaming cheeks--because they would not see her--and dark hair limp from
the rain--eyes sparkling, lips parted, teeth peeping--came Gwynneth to
the shed at last.
And the child ran to her, while the man's eyes followed him hungrily,
climbing no higher than Georgie's height.
"Oh, look what a lovely, lovely face the workman made me; do look, I
say! Is it wery kind of him to make me such a lovely thing?"
Gwynneth had been dragged to where the new head stood mounted upon a
misfit; and Carlton had been obliged to rise. But his eyes had not risen
from the child.
"Is it kind of him, I tell you?" persisted Georgie.
"Very kind," said Gwynneth, "indeed."
And civility compelled Carlton to look up at last.
"It was only to pass the time," he said. "I was obliged to bring him in
out of the rain."
"It was so good of you," murmured Gwynneth. "But it was not good of
Georgie to run away as soon as my back was turned!"
Georgie paid no heed to this reproach; he was busy playing with the
uncouth head.
"Oh, don't say that," said Carlton, quickly; "I don't get so many
visitors! Are you the little chap's governess?" he added, yet more
quickly, to undo the visible effects of his words.
"No, I'm--from the hall, you know."
He could not but start at this. But now he was guarding his tongue. And,
as he reflected, there came back to him the vague memory of a face in
church, followed by the sharper picture of a very young girl at the
piano in a pleasant room--the last that he had ever been in.
Gwynneth had recalled the same scene, and could see him as he had been,
while she gazed upon him as he was.
"I remember," he said, gravely. "So you take an interest in this little
chap, Miss Gleed?"
"Rather more than that," replied Gwynneth, taken out of herself in an
instant, and declaring her innocence by her sudden and unconscious
enthusiasm. "I love him dearly," she said from her heart: and together
their eyes returned to the round sailor hat, the brown pinafore and the
browner legs which were all that was now to be seen of Georgie the
engrossed.
"He is indeed a dear little fellow," said Carlton, smothering his sighs.
"And so affectionate!" added Gwynneth, thinking of the strange pair
together as she had found them.
"Marvellously independent, too, for his age."
"He is not quite four. You would think him older."
"Indeed I would . . . And so you are his 'lady'!"
"So he insists on calling me."
"You seem to be very much to him," said Robert Carlton, jealously
enough at heart, as he looked for once into the fine, kind, enthusiastic
eyes of Gwynneth; but they fell embarrassed, and his own were quick
enough to wander back to the boy.
"I have been more or less alone since last autumn," said Gwynneth.
"Georgie has been as much to me as I can possibly have been to him."
"But he lives at the Flint House, does he not? I--I gathered he was a
grandchild of the Musks."
"So he is."
"Are they bringing him up?"
"Yes."
"Kindly?"
"Oh, yes--kindly. But----"
"Are they fond of him?"
"Touchingly so; but, of course, they are two old people."
"And so you stepped in to lighten and brighten a little child's life!"
Gwynneth blushed unseen; for all this time he was looking at Georgie and
not at her.
"You mustn't put it like that," she said, "for it isn't the case. It was
quite a selfish pleasure. I was all alone. And it began by his being
dreadfully ill."
"What--Georgie?"
"Yes, and I was able to nurse him a little. And after that we couldn't
do without each other. But now we shall have to try."
He had looked at her with the last quick question, and was looking
still, a new anxiety in his eyes.
"Do you mean that you are going away?" he said; and his tone did not
conceal his disappointment.
"I am sorry to say I am," replied Gwynneth, feeling all she said.
"Soon?"
"To-morrow."
"Far?"
"Abroad."
"But not for long!"
"A year."
Her eyes fell at last before the frank trouble in his; and he ended the
pause with a sigh. "I am very sorry," he said. "I was hoping that you
would often bring him here to see me." Nor was any compliment taken or
intended in a speech which rang with the primitive sincerity of one who
had spoken very little for a very long time.
Gwynneth took the short step that brought her to the opening of the
shed. She had suddenly discovered that the rain had never ceased
pattering on the corrugated roof, and was wondering when the shower
would stop. She wished it was fair, for more reasons than one. It was
high time she took Georgie away; and she did not know what Musk would
say when he heard where they had been. She only knew his opinion of
parsons generally, and of all that they professed, though she had once
heard him allow that they were not all as bad as this one. Besides, even
Gwynneth felt natural qualms in the society of an outcast whom no one
else went near, quite apart from the popular conviction that he had
burnt his own church to the ground. That she had never believed. And
now, when she found him all but at his work; when she saw him at close
quarters, aged and bent, with tattered clothes and battered hands, yet
handsome as ever, and now picturesque; and when she looked upon the
gigantic work that had aged him, the finished wall here, the deliberate
preparations there; then that old calumny was blown to final shreds for
Gwynneth. He might have done worse, as she had sometimes heard said, but
he had not done that. And the woman went to work within her: was there
nothing she could do for him? Was there no little luxury she could get
and send him? His clothes were torn--if only she could mend them! Alas!
that she was going abroad next day.
Another moment and she was glad: how could she do anything, a young
girl, when all the rest of the world held aloof? Anything that she did,
or tried to do, would inevitably, if not rightly and properly, be
misconstrued. Yet, after this, it would be too painful to live so near
and to go on doing nothing. She had felt that long ago; and the memory
of their last encounter reoccupied her thoughts. No, she could do no
more now than she had been able to do then. Therefore she was glad to be
going away. And all this passed through her mind in the mere minute that
elapsed before the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Yet in that minute Robert Carlton had got Georgie back upon his knee,
and Gwynneth caught him trying to extract a promise from the child; in
another he had risen, a duskier bronze than before, and was telling her
honestly what the promise was to have been.
"I wanted him to come again to see me finish that head, but not to tell
his grandparents where he was going, or they would not let him. You see,
I am ashamed of it already! Make allowances for one who has not spoken
to either woman or child for very nearly four years."
Gwynneth was deeply moved.
"Allowances," she could but repeat; "allowances!"
"Allow'nces, allow'nces!" chimed Georgie, to whom a new word was
necessarily humorous.
Carlton picked him up, and kissed him lightly for the last time. To
Gwynneth he only bowed. And she was longing to take his hand.
"Good-bye, Miss Gleed; a good journey and a happy time to you."
Gwynneth had to say something, since she could do nothing, to show her
sympathy. "I think it's all wonderful--wonderful!" was all she did say,
with a little wave towards the sandstone walls. And yet her small speech
haunted her for weeks, seeming in turns so many things that she had
never meant it to be.
Georgie also waved with energy. "Good-bye, good-bye, I'll see you in the
mornin'!" was his irresponsible farewell.
And so they disappeared together, as the sun shone again through the
trees with the emerald tips, now dripping diamonds too; but to Robert
Carlton that little scene of his endless labours, the shed, the strewed
stones, the barrow, the rising walls, the blossoming chestnuts, the
jewelled elms, had never looked so drab and desolate before.
Yet, long after it was really dark, the lonely man still hovered about
the spot, now standing where the child had stood with his brown pinafore
and his browner legs; now sitting empty-kneed in the empty barrow; now
handling the rough stone head that he had hewn in a few minutes for
little Georgie.
XXIII
DESIGN AND ACCIDENT
Next morning he was early at his arch, and had soon finished the
voussoir which he had been roughing out when this vital interruption
occurred. But he was not satisfied with the stone, and wasted much time
in turning it over and over and wondering whether it would do or not.
Now this was a point upon which Carlton usually knew his mind in a
twinkling. Indecision of any sort was, indeed, among the last of his
failings; but that man is not himself who has not closed an eye all
night; and Robert Carlton had only closed his in prayer.
Later in the morning his case was worse. He would think of the boy until
the chisel went too deep and spoilt another stone. Or, just when he was
beginning to get on, he would drop his tools and wheel round suddenly,
half hoping to see a second little apparition in a sailor hat with the
brim turned down. But these things do not happen twice, much less when
looked and longed for, as Carlton knew very well. And yet his knowledge
did not help him in the matter; on the other hand, it drove him again
and again to his gate, to gaze wistfully up and down the road he never
traversed; and this was the most disastrous habit of all.
Once more the work stood still; for the first time in three whole years,
it stood practically still for days.
Meanwhile, at the Flint House, there had never been any secret as to
what had happened between showers at the church. Gwynneth had told Mrs.
Musk, and Mrs. Musk had deemed it better to tell Jasper himself than to
let him gather the truth from Georgie's prattle. And in the event Musk
took it better than his wife had dared to hope, merely vilifying quick
and dead with renewed rancour, and grimly undertaking that the incident
should not occur again.
So Georgie saw more of his grandfather than he had ever seen before, and
rather more than he cared to see after his close association with
Gwynneth, whose wonderful letter from Leipzig was small comfort to so
small a soul, though Mrs. Musk had to read it to Georgie many times a
day.
"Oh! I wish I would go and see workman," the boy would exclaim without
fear. "I wish I would! I wish I would!"
"I daresay you do," Jasper would growl from his chair.
"Then can I; can I, I say, grand-daddy?"
"No, you can't."
"Oh! why can't I?"
"Because I tell you."
"But, you see, grand-daddy, he was making me such a lovely, lovely face.
I must go back for it. Really I must. He did say he finish fen I go
back. So of course I must go. See? See? See?"
Thus pestered, Jasper once thundered:
"Oh, yes, I see! I know him--I know him. I see hard enough! But if ever
you do go I'll--I'll--I'll give ye what ye never had afore and'll never
want again!"
"Oh, don't be angry wif me," Georgie whimpered. "Oh, I wish my lady
would come back!"
"I daresay you do," said Jasper, calming. "And I don't."
But a child forgets; at all events Georgie did; and so surely as his
_ennui_ in the garden, within strict sight of the terrible old man in
the chair, reached a certain pitch, so surely did the treasonable
aspiration rise to his innocent lips.
"I wish I would go and see workman. I _wish_ I would!"
But at last one day the old man rose, stick and all; and at this even
Georgie trembled; for it was long since he had seen his grandfather on
his feet. Over the grass he came hobbling, ungainly, abnormal, frowning
down upon the buttercups. Georgie crept aside. But Musk passed him
without a word. Three times he limped the length of the overgrown lawn,
muttering, frowning; and the third time his lameness was palpably less.
"Why, Jasper," cried Mrs. Musk, running out, "you're getting better!"
"No, I ain't," he roared. "You mind your own business and get away
indoors."
Mrs. Musk was meekly obeying, and Georgie escaping at her skirt, when a
second roar recalled the child. Jasper was leaning with both hands on
the stick before him, his frown gone, but in its place a surely devilish
smile, since the child mistook it for the real thing.
"So you're still longun to go back and see the workman, as you call him,
at the church?"
"Oh, yes, I are!"
And round eyes kindled at the thought.
"Very well. You may."
Georgie could scarcely believe his ears.
"Fen may I? Now? Now, I say?"
"When you like, so long as you don't bother me."
Georgie jumped and shouted in his joy.
"Goin' to see workman, goin' to see workman! Oh, my Jove, my Jove! Goin'
to see workman makin' lovely, lovely faces all for me--every bit!"
"Hold your noise," said Jasper, roughly; "and go, if you're going."
Carlton had given up expecting him, divining at last that Musk knew of
their one interview, and would never let them have another. So once more
Georgie surprised him at his work; but this time he had to hail his
friend; for now Carlton was making up for lost time, and at the moment,
up on a scaffolding, was all absorbed in the exciting task of fitting
the finished voussoirs over the wooden centre which supported the arch
until the keystone should complete it. And the keystone was actually in
one hand, a trowel full of mortar in the other, when the first sound of
Georgie's voice drove all else from his mind.
"I say, I say, I say!" he ran up shouting. "Workman, workman!"
But now the workman was only collecting himself, and thanking God with
quivering lips, before he could trust himself upon his ladder.
"So here you are at last," he said, swinging the child off his legs
without endearment. Yet all his being yearned towards the merry
independent little boy. The straight strong legs seemed browner and
rounder already. It might have been the same holland pinafore; it was
the same sailor hat.
"Yes, here I are," said Georgie, "and I wish you would make lovely,
lovely faces out of bwick."
"Not run away again, I hope?"
"No, 'cos I came by my own self."
Carlton asked no more questions. Any minute the child might be missed
and sent for; every moment was precious meanwhile. It was a heavenly day
in early June, the elms in full leaf at last against the blue, the
churchyard dappled with light and shade, the fresh sandstone yellow as
gold where the sun caught it fairly. And in the sunlight stood its own
incarnation--sturdy champion of the golden age--laughing child of June.
Carlton could see nothing else.
"Come on, I say," urged Georgie; "come an' make faces, quick, sharp!"
And he dragged the sculptor to his rude studio.
"There it is, there it is," shouted Georgie, spying the unfinished head
high up on the shelf. "You did say you finish fen I come back.
Finish--finish--quick, sharp!"
Carlton brought the thing outside, for the shed was close, and went to
work at the foot of his ladder, with Georgie sitting on the lowest
rung. And any merit which the rough attempt had possessed was speedily
removed by an over-elaboration on which Georgie insisted, and which
certainly served its purpose by earning his vociferous applause.
"Oh, his eyes! What funny eyes! Make them open and shut, I say--can
you?"
A doll, which Gwynneth had unearthed, before she knew her Georgie very
well, had retained this accomplishment even when the head was off its
body.
"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Carlton.
"Try--try."
So Carlton gouged in the soft stone till the holes for the eyeballs had
disappeared.
"Now open them again!"
And fresh holes were made: they were the most sunken eyes ever seen
before Georgie was tired of the game. Next he must have ears, which were
supposed to be concealed by the very heavy head of hair; and when the
ears arrived, they were not worth having without ear-rings; but there
the sculptor was nonplussed, and struck.
"All right," said Georgie, cheerfully; "then I'll carry it home
without."
"What, run away directly it's done?"
The cold-blooded ingratitude of infancy was new to Carlton, as his hurt
face was to Georgie, who eyed it with some compassion.
"All right," said he; "I'll stay a little bit if you like."
"And sit on my knee, Georgie."
"All right."
But there was no sentiment about Georgie to-day; it was mere
magnanimity, and he showed it.
"Quite comfy, Georgie?"
"No," sighed the boy, screwing about on the one thin thigh; "I think
it's only a little comfy."
"That better?"
And, the other leg being slipped under his small person, Georgie said it
was.
"Are you sure, Georgie, that you want to take that head home at all?"
"Course I are," said Georgie, decidedly. "I must take it, you see;
course I must."
Carlton was again tormented by the ignoble inclination which he had
overcome by impulse rather than by will at the last interview. Was a
child of four too young to keep a secret? If only this one could be
induced to go and come back, and back, and back, without ever saying a
word to anybody! The proposition had shamed him before; and did now; but
the new love within him was stronger than his shame.
"You wouldn't show it," suggested Carlton, "to your grandfather, would
you?"
"Course I'll show it to him," said Georgie, for whom the stipulation was
too oblique.
"But he'll be angry!"
"Course he won't," said Georgie, more superior than ever, and with the
air of one who does not care to argue any more.
"But you know he was before," said Carlton, drawing his bow.
"Oh, bovver!" exclaimed Georgie, losing patience. "Well, then, he won't
be angry to-day, I know he won't."
"How do you know, Georgie?"
"'Cos he did tell me I could come."
"Not here?"
Georgie nodded solemnly.