THE CHILD, THE WISE MAN, AND THE LADY
Proverbially women love men's approbation. Something of the feeling
within him must have evidenced itself in Masters' eyes. His attentive
scrutiny--despite all there was of respect in it--did not, apparently,
please Miss Mivvins. Possibly, she was inclined to consider his
admiration rudeness. Anyway she called:
"Come, Gracie!"
Taking the child's little hand in her own neatly gloved one as she
spoke, the woman turned, evidently intent on walking back in the
direction whence she had come.
That brought Masters to his feet in a moment--cap in hand, and apology
in mouth. Full of crudities as was his character, he possessed an
instinctive courtesy. In all the arraignments for his breaches of
Society's unwritten laws, impoliteness had never figured. He spoke;
said:
"Pray do not let me drive you away! Possession may be nine points of the
law, but we may consider ourselves beyond the pale of its practice here.
If, as I hear--from lips the truth of which it would be absurd to
doubt--that this is considered your seat," his smile was not an
unpleasing one, "I should never forgive myself if trespass of mine
interfered with the owner's use of it."
"Is that pen you are using," inquired Gracie suddenly, à propos of
nothing, "one of those you put the ink in at the wrong end, and trickle
it out of the other?"
A softness blended with the smile on Masters' face and merged into that
kindly expression of the strong for the weak. It was the successful
catching of just such tenderness which made Landseer's name figure so
prominently in the world of Art. As the author looked down at the mite
from his six-feet altitude, the look on his face was an irresistible
reminder of a St. Bernard's kindness to a toy terrier.
"You have accurately described it, little woman," he answered. "But it
does not always trickle when you want it to--though it generally does
when you don't."
The child looked mystified; evidently deemed further explanation
necessary. Miss Mivvins was still standing, waiting to go. Masters
hesitated; looked from one to the other. Politeness made him say:
"I am leaving--pray be seated."
But the woman saw through that. Would have been very high up the fool
grade indeed had she failed to do so. It really was quite too
transparent an artifice. When truth is sacrificed on the altar of
politeness the ceremony needs skill, otherwise the lie becomes even more
offensive than the act it was to cover.
His little speech induced her to take a step forward; made her say:
"Oh, no! Do not let me drive you away!"
She spoke impulsively; hurriedly. Masters thought with everything in the
tone that was desirable in a woman's voice. He smiled as he
expostulated:
"But you remember, surely--it is not many moments ago--you were quite
willing to allow me to drive you away."
Then she smiled too. Smiles which brought into play mouth and eyes and
the dimples in her cheeks. From his own face the gravity--some people
called it Austerity--had already departed. There was a peculiarly
softening influence about Miss Mivvins. Perhaps his own relaxing was the
result of that.
"It is a long seat."
He indicated its measurement with a sweep of his hand as he spoke;
continued:
"Let its length be our way out of the difficulty--it is a long lane that
has no turning. How will it be if we make it large enough for both?"
It was a tentative sort of invitation. An invisible olive branch to
which her hand went out. Again she smiled. A moment's hesitation ...
then seated herself.
From the bag depending by silken cords from her wrist she drew a book.
Having given the little girl sundry directions as to the assumption of
preternatural virtue, the woman commenced to read.
Masters resumed his place at the other end of the seat. Had book in hand
too: manuscript book. He had come out with intent to write; told himself
that fulfilment was necessary. But he had Gracie to reckon with.
The sharp eyes of that four-year-old little maid were furtively fixed on
the magic pen. She was trying hard to fulfil the injunction: Be
good--from the adult standpoint. But gradually the admonition was fading
from her mind--she was very human.
After a while--a courage-summoning period--the little hands were laced
behind her, and boldly facing the owner of the attraction, the little
one addressed him, in a kind of I Dare You voice:
"I could write with a pen like that!"
For a second time the child's voice brought the man's attention away
from his work.
"Could you?"
He smiled as he spoke. Looked up from his book as he did so. Then,
infusing a note of doubt in his voice, enquired:
"Are you sure?"
"Y--yes. Quite!"
Then, as an afterthought, possibly by way of redemption of the
hesitation, the child continued:
"I could if I had one!"
Finding her first venture had not roused the lion, but fearing him a
little still, she went on defiantly:
"I saw a man fill one once!"
Such a statement as that surely could not fail to crush a mere user of
the pen! Seeing that astonishment was expected of him, Masters assumed
an appropriate look of surprise. His wearing of it pleased her mightily.
"Perhaps," he said, "you would like to make quite sure you could write
with one, eh? Would you like to try with this?"
The blue eyes brightened; she was at his side in a moment. Shyness is
readily overcome when our summers have not numbered five. Trustfulness
at that age has rarely been shocked.
Therein, perhaps, lay the secret of the attraction children had for
Masters: the sweetness of their suspicionless existence. Viewed from the
standpoint of the after life, when--if we act up to the axioms of the
world we live in--we trust no man, it is apt to brush across us as
refreshingly as a gust of country air.
Turning the leaves of his book till he came to a blank page, Masters
twisted and rested the cover on his knee. So the open leaf was level
with the intending--eyes-sparkling-with-excitement--writer. Then he gave
the child his pen.
She drew a capital G--a bright little point of tongue protruding the
while. The head, too, seemed to follow the movements of the hand. Her
intent was plain: to write her own name.
That was compassed. It took a little time--entailed a huge expenditure
of concentrated energy--but she got through with it at last. There
figured on the paper the words:
_Gracie Seton-Carr._
The child's glance came off the page; she moved away a pace. Looked up
into his eyes, her own flashing like diamonds. Such little things
please--in that time of happiness when we are little ourselves. After
drawing a long breath she ejaculated triumphantly:
"There!"
Once more Masters gladdened the little one, by acting as he was expected
to act. No man on that coast could have worn a larger-sized look of
astonishment. He cried:
"Won--der--ful!"
A clapping of hands in her glee, and the child danced merrily along to
the other end of the seat.
"I've written my name with one of those funny squirter pens, Miss
Mivvins! What do you think of that?"
"I think you have a funny way of keeping your word, Gracie. You
professed anxiety to finish your castle on the sands, yet you are
spending your time on the wall!"
"Oh-h-h!"--prolonged and drawn out--"I had forgotten all about it!"
Attention diverted from the pen, the child ran down the steps on to the
beach. A few minutes after, Masters, looking up, saw her busily at work
with a spade and pail. The implements had evidently been left there in
the morning.
That rather proved the excellence of the estimate the author had made of
Wivernsea out of the season. Castle builders could leave their tools
uncared for and find them when they returned. Not because of a
superabundance of honesty around; rather because of the lack of thieves.
The castle creator continued her work; the pail-shaped battlements
increased in number. She handled bucket and spade with the same
earnestness, eagerness and engrossment with which she had fingered the
pen.
Those were methods which appealed to the story-creator. But just now he
was not working with his own accustomed engrossment, eagerness and
earnestness. A disturbing element had crept in.
From time to time he glanced towards the other end of the seat. There
the disturbing element lay: or rather sat. It seemed that there was
something magnetic about that presence there. He experienced a
difficulty in keeping his eyes away. Noting the neatness of the dress
worn by the woman, he could not fail to note too its sombre hue:
mourning evidently. His lively imagination was busily at work in a
moment.
For him to weave a complete story with such material, was an easy task.
A pretty girl occupied the stellar part in it. He portrayed her as a
motherless one forced to face a hard, cold world. Depicted her seeking a
living in it as a governess.
That imagination of his had a habit of running away with him. Perhaps
that was a reason why his fiction had so good a run. His books were
mostly all of the many-editioned kind. So, neglecting his own story for
fiction of another kind, the time came of the going down of the sun. The
tint of the vasty-deep changed: the sea grew greyer. His
heroine-presumptive closed her book and rose; cried:
"Gracie!"
Seeing that the child's attention had been attracted, she turned, and
bowing slightly, smilingly wished Masters:
"Good-day!"
From the sands, the little girl waved a vigorous
cumbered-with-bucket-and-spade good-bye to him. She evidently preferred
jumping the breakwaters on the way home to the more easy path of the sea
wall. The two passed altogether from the author's sight. Not altogether
from his mind.
Good-day! Yes, he felt it had been--distinctly good. Till he looked at
clean pages, where writing should have been. Even then, despite the
unfinished chapter, he made no alteration in his verdict.
It had been a good day.