"CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY?"
Hetty Layard was not sorry when, upon the morning of Mr. William
Crawford's return from the Counters Club, she found a note for her
brother Alfred, explaining that he had gone out for an early walk, the
weather was so lovely, and that he would not be back until next month,
when he hoped to find her and Mr. Layard very well; and thanking her
and him for the entertainment afforded him. He, moreover, left her a
cheque--one collected the previous day--for a couple of sovereigns,
out of which he begged her to take whatever his food had cost and
half-a-crown which she was to present from him to Mrs. Grainger.
Miss Layard uttered a little sigh of relief when she put down the
note. Every one knows that men are a nuisance about a house,
especially men who have no fixed or regular business hours of absence.
Men are very well in their own way, which means to the housewife when
they are not in her way. A man who is six, eight or ten hours away
from home every day, and goes to church twice on Sunday and takes a
good long walk between the two services, may not only be tolerated,
but enjoyed. But a man who does not get up until ten o'clock and keeps
crawling or dashing about the house all day long is an unmitigated and
crushing evil. It does not matter whether he wears heavy boots or
affects the costume of a sybaritic sloven, and wanders about like a
florid and venerable midday ghost in dressing-gown and slippers.
A woman's house is not her own as long as there is a man in it. While
enduring the presence of male impertinence she cannot do exactly as
she likes. There is at least one room she may not turn topsy-turvy, if
the fit takes her. There is no freedom, no liberty. If the man remain
quietly in one room, there is the unpleasant feeling that he must be
either dead or hungry. A man has very little business to be in the
house during day-time unless he is either dead or hungry. If the man
does not confine himself to one room he is quite certain to go
stumbling over sweeping-brushes and dust-pans in passages where he has
no more right to be than a woman behind the counter of a bank or on
the magisterial bench. From, say, the o'clock in the morning till four
in the afternoon you really can't have too little of a man about a
house. Very practical housekeepers prefer not to see their male folk
between nine and seven. Undoubtedly, strong-minded women believe that
two meals a day and the right to sleep under his own roof of nights is
as much as may with advantage to comfort be allowed to man.
But Hetty Layard was not strong-minded at all. She was not over
tender-hearted either, though she was as tenderhearted as becomes a
young girl of healthy body and mind, one not sicklied over with the
pale cast of sentimentalism. She was as bright and cheerful as spring;
but all the same, she was not sorry when she found her lodger had
fled, and that they were to have the place to themselves for a month.
That day Hetty was to enjoy the invaluable service of Mrs. Grainger
from breakfast to tea-time. From that day until Mr. Crawford's next
visit Mrs. Grainger was to come only for a couple of hours in the
forenoon every day to do the rough work. Mrs. Grainger was childless,
and could be spared from her own hearth between breakfast and supper,
as her husband took his dinner with him to the works, and had supper
and tea together.
"So the unfortunate man has succeeded in getting out of your
clutches," said Alfred Layard at his late breakfast, when Hetty told
him the news.
"Yes; but he left something behind him. Look." She handed her brother
the cheque. "I am to take the price of all he has had out of this, and
give half-a-crown to Mrs. Grainger."
Alfred Layard shook his head very gravely. "Hetty, I had, I confess to
you, some doubts of this man's sanity; I have no longer any doubt. The
man is mad!"
"Considering that we are obliged to find attendance, I think he has
been very generous to Mrs. Grainger."
"As mad as a hatter," said the brother sadly.
"If, Alfred, I tell you how much to take out of this, will you send
him the change, or is the change to remain over until next time?"
"The miserable man is as mad as a March hare."
"See! This is all I spent for him--twelve and threepence, and that
includes a lot of things that will keep till he comes again."
"To think of this poor man trusting a harpy, a lodging-house keeper,
with untold gold! O, the pity of it!"
"There are candles and lamp-oil, and tea and soap, and sugar, and
other things that will keep, Alfred. You can explain this when you are
sending him the change. I suppose it will be best to send him the
change. You have his Richmond address?"
"Freddie," said the father, addressing his flaxen-haired, blue-eyed
little son at the other side of the table, "when you grow up and are a
great big man, don't lodge with your Aunt Hetty. She'd fleece you, my
boy. She'd starve you, and she wouldn't leave you a rag to cover you."
He shook a warning finger at the boy.
"I shall live always with Aunt Hetty," said the boy stoutly, "and I
want more bread-and-butter, please."
"See, my poor child, she is already practising. If she only had her
way, she would reduce you to a skeleton in a week."
"Alfred, I wish you'd be sensible for a minute. This is business. I
really don't know what to do, and you ought to tell me. Will you look
at this list, and see if it is properly made out?" she said pouting.
She had a pretty way of affecting to pout and then laughing at the
idea of her being in a bad humour.
Her brother took the slip of paper and glanced at it very gravely.
"May I ask," said he, putting down the slip on the breakfast cloth,
"whether this man has had his boots polished here?"
"Of course he had; twice--three times I think."
"And had he free and unimpeded use of condiments, such as salt,
pepper, vinegar, mustard?"
"Yes. You don't think he could eat without salt, do you?"
"Perhaps--perhaps he even had PICKLES?"
"I think he had some pickles."
"Then, Hetty"--he rose, and, buttoning up his coat, made signs of
leaving--"I am going to find an auctioneer to sell up the furniture.
We are ruined."
"Ah, Alfred, like a good fellow, help me!" she pleaded, coming to him
and putting her hand on his arm. "What do you mean by asking all these
silly questions about blacking and vinegar?"
"Not one, Hetty, not one of the items I have named is charged in the
bill, and I am a pauper, pauperised by your gross carelessness, by the
shamefully lax way in which you have kept my books. What do you think
would become of the great corporation I serve if our accounts were
kept in so criminally neglectful a manner? Why, the Welford Gas
Company would be in liquidation in a month! Suppose we treated ammonia
lightly; suppose we gave all our coke to the Mission to the Blacks for
distribution among the negroes; suppose we made a present of our tar
to the Royal Academicians to make aniline colours for pictures to be
seen only by night; suppose we gave all our gas to aeronauts who
wanted to stare the unfortunate man in the moon out of countenance;
suppose we supplied all our customers with _dry meters_, Hetty;
suppose, I say, we supplied all our customers with _dry meters_, where
should we be? Where on earth should we be?"
"Perhaps not on earth at all, Alfred, but gone up to heaven with the
aeronauts. Do be sensible for a moment. I want you to tell me if we
are to keep the change until next time or send it after him?"
"Have you given that half a-crown to Mrs. Grainger?"
"Yes."
"O, you prodigal simpleton! What need was there to give it? Why did
you not keep it and buy a furbelow? No doubt you were afraid that when
this man came back he would find out all about it. Nonsense! Why, we
could dismiss Mrs. Grainger, and if she came loafing about the place,
nothing in the world could be easier than to push her into the canal.
I like her husband, and it would please me to do him a good turn."
There was a knock at the door, and the charwoman put in her head.
"Come in, Mrs. Grainger. What is it?" said Hetty, going towards the
door.
Mrs. Grainger, in her lilac cotton dress and large apron, advanced a
step into the room. Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbows of her
red thick arms. She was a stout, fair-faced woman of fifty. She had
not a single good feature in her face. But her expression was wholly
honest and not unkindly.
Layard could not help looking from her to Hetty and contrasting the
joyous youth and grace, the fresh colour and golden-brown hair of the
girl, and the dull, dead, unintelligent drab appearance of the woman.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Layard," said the charwoman, "but you were
talking to me yesterday and the day before about the poor lonely
gentleman that lives on Boland's Ait."
"Yes. Well, what about him? Have you found out anything fresh?" said
Hetty with interest.
"Only that he isn't alone any longer."
"You don't mean to say he has got married and has just brought his
wife home," said Layard, affecting intense astonishment and
incredulity.
"No, sir," said the woman, somewhat abashed by his manner. "Not a
wife, sir, but a child; a little boy about the size of Master Freddie
there."
"Bless my soul, wonders will never cease! But I say, Hetty, I must be
off. If the Cham of Tartary and the great sea-serpent came to live on
that island, and had asked me to swim across and have tiffin and
blubber with them, I couldn't go now. I must be off to the works.
Hetty, we'll resume the consideration of the cruet-stand when I come
back this evening. Let all those matters stand till then. The delay
will give us an opportunity of charging interest for the money in
hand."
He hastened from the room, and in a minute was out of the house and
hastening up Crawford Street, with the long streamers of his beard
blowing over his shoulders.
"Where did you see the child from, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Hetty, when
her brother disappeared up the street. "From Mr. Crawford's room?"
"No, miss; you can't see into the timber-yard on the island from Mr.
Crawford's room on account of the wall. But you can see over the wall
from your own room, miss; and 'twas from your own room I saw the
child. And he was carrying on, too, with that child, miss," said the
woman, coming further into the room, and busying herself about
clearing away the breakfast-things.
She was not exactly idle or lazy; but no living woman would rather
scrub and scour than chat, particularly when paid by time and not by
piece.
"What do you mean by 'carrying on?' What was he doing?"
"Well, he was kissing, and cuddling, and hugging the child, more like
a mother with her baby than a man with a child. The boy is quite as
big as little Master Freddie, there, and the poor gentleman seemed to
be pretending the great boy couldn't walk without help, for he led him
by the hand up and down the yard, and when he did let go of him for a
moment he kept his hand over the little chap's head, like to be ready
to catch hold of him if he was falling or stumbled. A great big boy,
as big as Master Freddie there; it's plain to be seen he's not used to
children," said Mrs. Grainger scornfully; for, although she had no
children of her own, she was sympathetic and cordial with little ones,
and often looked after a neighbour's roomful of babies while the
mother went out marketing or took the washing, or mangling, or sewing
home.
"Perhaps it is his own child," said Hetty, as she helped to put the
breakfast-things on the tray.
"His own child? Of course it isn't. How could it be? Why, if it was
his own child he'd be used to it. He'd know better than to go on with
such foolery as guiding it with his hand along a level yard. He
doesn't know anything about children, no more than the ground they are
walking on."
"Perhaps he is afraid it might fall into the water. I'll wash up the
breakfast things myself, Mrs. Grainger."
"Very well, miss. Afraid it might fall into the water! Why, the child
couldn't. They're in the timber-yard, and there's a wall all around
it, and neither of the gates is open."
"Well," said Hetty, as the woman left the room carrying the tray,
"maybe he is looking after the child for some friend; perhaps the
child has only come on a visit to him."
"Look after a child for a friend! Is he the sort of man to look after
a child for a friend?" Mrs. Grainger called out from the kitchen.
"What friend would ask a man like him to mind a child? I'd as soon ask
a railway-engine or a mangle to look after a child of mine, if I had
one. Besides, if the child belongs to a friend, what does he mean by
kissing and cuddling it?"
"I give it up," said the girl. "I own I can make nothing of it. What
do you think, Mrs. Grainger? You know more about this strange man and
his strange ways than I do."
"I think," said Mrs. Grainger, in the voice of one uttering an
authoritative decision, "the whole thing is a mystery, and I can make
nothing of it. But you, miss, go up and look. If you want to see him,
he is in the timber-yard. Go to your room, miss, and have a peep. You
may be able to make something of it; I can't."
"I will," said the girl; "I shall be down in a few minutes." And she
ran out of the sitting-room, upstairs with a light springy step, and
the murmured burden of a song on her lips.
She went to the open window of her own room and looked out.
It was close on noon, and the blazing light of early summer filled all
the place beneath her. The view had no charms of its own, but the fact
that she was above the ground and away from immediate contact with the
sordid earth had a purifying effect upon the scene. Then, again, what
place is it that can look wholly evil when shone upon by the unclouded
sun of fresh May?
In front and to right and left the canal flamed in the sunlight. At
the other side of the water lay a sloping bank of lush green grass,
beyond that a road, and at the other side of the road a large yard, in
which a great number of gipsy-vans, and vans belonging to cheap-Jacks
and to men who remove furniture, were packed.
So far, if there was nothing to delight, there was nothing to
displease the spectator. In fact, from a scenic point of view the
colour was very good, for you had the flaming canal, the dark green of
the grassy bank, and the red and yellow and blue caravans of the
gipsies and the cheap-Jacks and the people who remove furniture.
Beyond this yard there spread a vast extent of small, mean, ill-kept
houses which were not picturesque, and which suggested painful
thoughts concerning the squalor and poverty of the people who lived in
them.
To the right stretched the tow-path leading to Camberwell, to the left
a row of stores, and only a hundred yards off was the empty ice-house.
To the right lay Leeham, invisible from where the girl stood, and
nearer and visible a row of stores and a stone-yard.
In front of her was Boland's. Ait, and in the old timber-yard of the
islet Francis Bramwell walking up and down, holding the hand of a boy
of between three and four in his hands, as though the child had walked
for the first time within this month of May.
Mrs. Grainger was right. This man, whose face Hetty could not see, for
he bent low over the child, was treating the boy as though he were no
more than a year or fifteen months old. He was also displaying towards
him a degree of affection altogether inconsistent with the supposition
that the youngster was merely the son of a friend.
The two were walking up and down the yard, the right hand of the child
in the left hand of the man, the right hand of the man at one time
resting lightly on the boy's head, at another on the boy's shoulder.
The man's whole mind seemed centred on his charge. He never once
raised his head to look around. No doubt the thought that he might be
observed never occurred to him. For two years he had lived on that
island, and never until now arose a chance of any one seeing him when
he was in the yard; for the only windows that overlooked it were those
of Crawford's House, and that had been unoccupied until three days
ago.
Suddenly it occurred to Hetty that she was intruding upon this
stranger's privacy. Of course she was free to look out of her own
window as long as she liked; but then it was obvious Bramwell thought
there was no spectator, or, at all events, he had not bargained in his
mind for a spectator.
A faint flush came into her cheek, and she was on the point of drawing
back when a loud shrill voice sounded at her side:
"Aunt Hetty, Aunt Hetty, I want to see the little boy!"
The girl started, and then stood motionless, for the recluse below had
suddenly looked up, and was gazing in amazement at the girl and child
in the window above him.
The man and boy in the yard were both bare-headed. Bramwell raised his
open hand above his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sky,
that he might see the better.
Hetty drew back a pace, as though she had been discovered in a
shameful act. Her colour deepened, but she would not go altogether
away from the window. That would be to admit she had been doing
something wrong.
"Aunt Hetty," cried Freddie, in the same shrill loud voice, "can I
play with that little boy down there? I have no one to play with
here."
The upturned face of the man smiled, and the voice of the man said,
"Come down, my little fellow, and play with this boy. He is just like
yourself--he has no one to play with. You will let him come, please? I
will take the utmost care of him."
"I--I'll see," stammered Hetty, quite taken aback.
"You will let him come? O, pray do. My little fellow has no companion
but me," said the deep, full, rich pleading voice of the man.
In her confusion Hetty said, "If it's safe. If he can get across."
"O, it's quite safe. I will answer for the child. I'll push across the
stage in a moment, and fetch the child. There is plenty of room for
them to play here, and absolutely no danger."