AN INVITATION ACCEPTED.
"And so," said Alfred Layard to Hetty the evening of the day little
Freddie, now in bed, had made his first visit to the island, "you have
absolutely spoken to this Alexander Selkirk. Tell me all about it."
She began, and told him how she went up to her own room and saw
Bramwell and the boy in the yard on the island, and how Freddie's cry
had betrayed her presence, and in the confusion at being found out she
had consented to let their youngster go to play with the other
youngster.
"You are not annoyed with me, Alfred, for allowing him, are you?" she
asked in some suspense. The little fellow had never before been so
long from under her charge.
"Annoyed? Not I. What should I be annoyed at, so long as the people
are all right, and there is no danger of Freddie tumbling into the
water?"
"O, there is no danger whatever. A wall runs all round the yard, and
Mr. Bramwell was in and out all day looking after the boys."
"How did Freddie get across? Swam?"
"Don't be absurd, Alfred." She knew very well her brother did not ask
her seriously if the child had swum across the waters of Crawford's
Bay. And she knew equally well that he was not reproaching her for
letting the boy cross the water. At an ordinary time she would have
passed by such a question from him in silence, disregarded, but there
lingered in her mind a vague feeling that she stood on her defence
about the expedition of the morning, and she felt timid under anything
like levity. "No; when we got down and out by the back door to the
wharf we saw Mr. Bramwell pulling a great long floating thing made of
timber through the water. He pushed this over to where we stood. It
reached across the water. He told us he had another of the same kind
on the canal side of the island."
"I know. A floating stage."
"I daresay that is what they call it. I should call it a floating
bridge. Well, he walked across this and took little Freddie in his
arms and carried him over. I was a good deal frightened, for the thing
rocked horribly, but he told me there was no danger."
"Of course, there was no danger while the child was carried by a
careful man. We had two of these stages at the works, but we had to
get rid of them, for the men were always either going out for drink or
getting drink brought in for them."
"And, do you know, Freddie did not cry or seem a bit afraid of the
water."
"Hetty, take my word for it that from what you tell me there is the
making of a great naval hero in that boy of ours."
"I wish you would try to be sensible for a while."
"I think I shall call him from this date Frederick Nelson Layard."
"Don't be ridiculous, Alfred."
"Or Frederick Cochrane Layard."
"O, don't, please, Alfred."
"It is well to be prepared for fame, and we should always take care
that our children are prepared for fame and what more simple and
inexpensive preparation can a man have for fame than to be suited,
clothed, I may say, in a name becoming fame? Hetty, my dear, remind me
in the morning to decide which of these names I shall finally adopt;
it is a matter that admits of no delay. I would not think of calling
him Frederick Drake Layard for all the world, because in the first
place the name Drake in connection with water suggests a whole lot of
frivolous jests, always an abomination to me; and in the second place,
there was too much of the buccaneer about Drake. Hetty, don't forget
to remind me of the matter in the morning. The boy wasn't sea-sick, I
hope?"
The girl only sighed this time. She had now lost all sense of
uneasiness about the part she had played in the affair of the morning.
"You know," he went on in a tone of pleasant reverie, "I think
something ought to be done with the surname too. It would be well to
be ready at every point. All you have to do is to write in an _n_, and
you have a distinctly nautical flavour. How do you like Frederick
Nelson Cochrane Lanyard? But there--there--my girl, don't answer me
now. It is, you would naturally say, too important a question to be
decided offhand. Think of the matter to-night. Sleep on the idea, my
dear Hetty, and let me have your decision in the morning. If in the
dead waste and middle of the night any difficulties which you think I
could solve arise in your mind, do not fail to call me. I shall be
happy to give you any assistance in my power."
"Are you out of breath, Alfred? I hope you are."
"No, but I am out of tea. Another cup, please, and let us dismiss
business from our minds. Let us unbend. It weakens the bow to keep it
always bent. Tell me, what is this man, our next-door neighbour, like?
I have a theory myself that he is a coiner."
"Well, if he is a coiner you must not think he uses much of his
ill-gotten gold in buying clothes. He's dreadfully shabby. But,
whatever else he may be, he is a gentleman."
"Good-looking, of course?"
"No, but remarkable-looking. When you see him you could never take him
for a common man. He seems awfully clever."
"Well, as some philosopher, whose name has escaped me, says, we must
take him as we find him, though I must say it seems to me that it
would be very difficult to take him as we do not find him, or as we
find him not. To be serious, Hetty----"
"O, thank goodness! at last!" cried the girl, with a sigh of relief,
and raising her eyes in gratitude.
"If you don't take great care," he said, shaking a long thin
forefinger at her, "you can't tell what may happen. I am not the man
to submit to bullying at your hands. What I was going to say when you
threatened me is this, that while I have no objection to Freddie going
over now and then to play with this boy----"
"He promised to go over again to-morrow," interrupted Hetty.
"All right; let him go over to-morrow. But for two or three reasons he
must not go over every day. This young--By the way, what's his name?"
"Bramwell. The man told me he was his son, his only child."
"Very good. This young Bramwell must come over, turn and turn about,
and play with Freddie here. In the first place, I think one of the
upstairs rooms is a safer place for these young shavers than the
island, though there is a wall; and in the next place, this Bramwell
is at work on coining, or whatever it is, all day, and can't be
expected to look after two mischievous boys of their age. Of course
you can't have the two of them here when we have Crawford; but that
will not be for four weeks more. That reminds me: he said he should
like to see Freddie. Did he ask afterwards for the boy?"
"No. You see he was busy tidying, or rather untidying, his room all
one day, and he was out a good deal of the time, and went away early
in the morning."
"Just so. My sister, you are very quick with excuses for your hero,
your Bayard."
"I still say what I said before."
"Naturally you do. Women always do stick to what they say. They are
the unprogressive sex. But we will let him go by. I confess, from the
little I have heard of this Bramwell--solitary now no longer--I am
interested in him. A man who has kept himself to himself for years
must, if there ever was anything in him, have something to say worth
listening to when he speaks. We are solitary enough ourselves,
goodness knows. Who can tell but this Zimmermann may be induced to
cross the Hellespont, or, to be more near the situation, cross over
from his Negropont to the mainland? When you meet him to-morrow, say I
should be very glad if he would come to us and have a chat and smoke a
pipe."
"I will, but I'm sure he doesn't smoke."
"Why are you sure of that, my sister?"
"Because he has quite an intellectual look."
"Thank you, Hetty. Very neat indeed. I shall not forget that thrust
for a while. Now" (he raised his warning finger again and shook it at
her with a look of portentous meaning) "mind, this is the second man
you have fallen in love with during the past three days, and the
horrible part of the matter is that both of them are married."
Whatever might be forgotten next morning, one thing was sure to be
recollected in Crawford's House. It is a fact that Hetty did not
remember to draw her brother's attention to the change of name
projected for Freddie the evening before. Nor, strange to say, did her
brother revert to the contemplated alteration.
But what was remembered beyond all chance of forgetting was that
Freddie had promised to go across to the island again to-day. If the
father and aunt happened by any means to lose sight of the fact, they
were not allowed to remain a moment in doubt about it. The first thing
the boy said when he opened his eyes was, "I'm to go to play with
Frank again to-day, amn't I, Auntie Hetty?"
At breakfast he had most of the talk to himself, and all his talk was
about Frank and the island, and the boat by which he had gone across,
and Frank's father, who had given them both sugar on bread-and-butter,
and the old barrow which was in the yard, and which served them with
great fidelity as a cab, and a tramcar, and a steamboat, and a house,
and a canal-boat, and a horse, and a great variety of other useful
appliances and creatures.
"Are there wheels to that barrow?" asked the father as he got up to
leave the house for the works.
"No, no wheels. But we play that there are."
"So much the better there are none. And now, my young friend," said
the father, catching up the boy and kissing him, "take care you do not
fall out of that barrow and cut your nose, and take care you don't
hurt the other little boy; for if you do you shall never, never, never
go over to the island again. Remember that, won't you?"
"Yes," said Freddie, struggling out of his father's arms in order to
get on a chair and see through the kitchen window if the other little
boy's father was already coming to fetch him on that long narrow boat
across those wide waters to the haven of joy, the old timber-yard
beyond.
Alas! the little boy's father was not there, and to the young eyes the
place looked desolate, forlorn.
"Will Frank's father come soon, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Freddie, in a
tone of despair.
"Of course he will. He'll be here in a few minutes," said that good
woman, who knew absolutely nothing of Hetty's promise of the previous
afternoon, as she had left the house long before Freddie came back and
the undertaking for another visit was given. But Mrs. Grainger was
fond of children, and, if she had had any of her own, would have
spoiled them beyond hope of reformation.
"Frank said he'd be up very early," said the boy in pensive complaint.
"And very early he'll be," said Mrs. Grainger, as she polished the
fender with resolute vigour. "He'll be here, I warrant, before you
have time to say Jack Robinson."
The phrase which Mrs. Grainger used to indicate a very little while
was new to the boy, and he took it literally, and murmured softly, in
a voice that did not surmount the sound of Mrs. Grainger's conflict
with the fender, "Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson!" and
then, finding the soothsaying unfulfilled, he lapsed into a spiritless
silence, keeping his eyes fixed on the point where he knew Bramwell
must come round the corner of the yard-wall.
Presently he raised a great shout and clapped his hands, and, getting
down from the chair on which he had been standing, tore, shouting
through the house, to discover his Aunt Hetty, and tell her the joyful
news and fetch his hat.
He found Hetty, and in quick haste the aunt and nephew were out on the
little quay or wharf, and stretching towards them, drawn by Francis
Bramwell, was the long, low, black floating stage.
Little Frank was not visible. His father had left him safe behind the
wall of the yard. It would be unsafe to trust him on the edge of
Crawford's Bay, and dangerous to carry two boys of so young an age
across that long, oscillating, crank raft.
Hetty stood at the edge of the water holding the boy in her arms.
"How do you do, Mrs. Layard?" said Bramwell, lifting his battered
billycock hat as he landed. "I am indebted to your little nephew for
your name."
He spoke gravely, with an amelioration of the subdued and serious
lines of his face that was almost a smile. During the past two or
three days he had not only re-inherited the power of smiling, but had
absolutely laughed more than once at some speech or action of his
son's, or when his thoughts took a pleasant turn about the boy. But he
had been so long out of use in smiling or laughing that he could not
yet exercise these powers except in connection with the child.
Hetty in some confusion said she was very well, and thanked him.
Freddie's summons had been sudden, and, at the moment, unexpected, so
that she felt slightly embarrassed.
"I am sure," the man said, keeping his large, luminous, sphinx-like
eyes on her, "it is very good of you to allow your little fellow to
come to play with mine. You do me a great kindness in lending him to
me. I shall take the utmost care of him, I pledge you my word."
In these few seconds the girl had regained her self-possession, and
said, with one of those bright sunny smiles of hers, in which golden
light seemed to dance in her blue eyes, "Understand, I allow him to go
as a favour."
"Undoubtedly," he said, bowing, and then looking at her with a faint
gleam of surprise in his eyes.
"And you will repay favour for favour?"
"If I can."
"Well, my brother is a very lonely, home-keeping man, who hardly ever
has any one to see him, and he told me to ask you if you would do him
the kindness of coming in this evening for a little while, as he would
like to meet you, now that our young people are such friends. That is
the favour I ask. I ask it for my brother's sake. Will you come,
please?"
The man started, drew back, and looked around him half-scared. The
notion of going into the house of another man had not crossed his mind
for two years. The invitation sounded on his ears as though it were
spoken in a language familiar to him in childhood, but which he had
almost wholly forgotten. He had come across the water in order to
secure a companion for his little son: but that any one should think
he would come across that water and speak to people for an object of
his own was startling, disconcerting, subversive of all he had held
for a long time: since his arrival at the Ait.
Hetty saw that he hesitated, and, having no clue to his thoughts,
fancied her invitation had not been pressing enough.
"You will promise?" she said, holding Freddie out to him. "You said
you would do me a favour in return for the loan of the boy. You will
not withdraw. It would really be a great kindness, for my brother is
alone in the evenings except for me, and he seldom goes out."
"But Mrs. Layard----" said the man, in discomposure and perplexity, as
he took Freddie in his arms, and hardly knowing what he said.
"Ah," said the girl, shaking her head, and pointing up to the
unclouded sky, "she went when Freddie was a tiny little baby."
"Dead?" whispered the man, as a spasm passed over his face.
"Yes, more than three years."
"I beg your pardon. I am very stupid. I am afraid I have caused you
pain. Believe me, I am extremely sorry."
"No, no; you must not say anything more of that. But you will come?"
"It is strange," said he in a tone of profound abstraction; "it is
strange that the two little motherless boys should take such a liking
to one another, and that both should come to this district--this
place--at about the same time."
He had forgotten the girl's presence. Like most men who have lived
long in solitude, he had contracted the habit of talking aloud to
himself, and he was now unconscious that he had a listener.
"We may count on you?"
He awoke with a start: he did not know exactly to what the question
referred. He was aware that he had been keeping the girl waiting for
an answer, and that she had asked him for a favour in return for the
loan of a companion for his boy. He blurted out "Certainly," and was
back on the Ait once more before he realised the nature of the promise
he had made.