Boy gave no reply. It was the first difficult moral situation of his life, and it was hardly to be wondered at that he found it almost too much for him. The plain fact of the matter was that, however much “Muzzy” wanted him, he did not want “Muzzy.” Nor did he at all wish to go home. But he had already an infantile consciousness of the awful “must” set over us by human wills which, unlike God’s will, are not always working for good, and he had a glimmering perception that he was bound to submit to these inferior orders till the time came when he could create his own “must” and abide by it. But he could not put these vague emotions into speech; all he did was to lose his appetite for bread-and-jam and to stare blankly at “Kiss-Letty.” She meanwhile put Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s letter in her pocket, and tried to assume her usual bright and cheerful air, but with very poor success. For, in truth, she was greatly disappointed; and when she lifted Boy out of his chair at the table and set him down on the floor, with a very fascinating toy in the shape of a “merry-go-round” moved by clockwork, — which, however, he contemplated this morning with a faint sense of the futility of all earthly pleasures, — she was vaguely troubled by presentiments to which she could give no name. The hours wore on languidly, and it was with a sense of something like relief that she heard a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door, and a minute afterwards Major Desmond’s cheery voice in the hall.
She went out to meet him, leaving Boy with his toys in her morning-room; but one glance at his face confirmed all her worst fears. — ..
“It’s no go, Letty!” he said, regretfully, as he shook hands, “I’ve done my best. But I’ll tell you where the trouble is. It’s the woman. I could manage D’Arcy-Muir, but not that stout playactress. When D’Arcy-Muir is sober he sees clearly enough, and realizes quite well what a capital chance it is for the little chap; but there is no doing anything with his jelly-fish of a wife. She bridles all over with offence at your proposition, — says she has her own ideas for Boy’s education and future prospects. Nice ideas they are likely to be. Well, it’s no use fretting; you must resign yourself to the inevitable, Letty, and give up your pet project.”
Miss Letty listened with apparently unmoved composure while he spoke; when he had finished, she said quietly, —
“Yes, I suppose I must. Of course I cannot press the point. One must not urge separation between mother and child. Oh, yes, I must give it up,” — this with a little pained smile, “ I have had to give up so many hopes and joys in life that one more disappointment ought not to matter so much, ought it? Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir has written to me, I am to take Boy back this afternoon.”
The major’s tender heart was troubled, but he would not offer his friend any consolation. He knew that the least said the soonest mended in such cases, and he saw that Miss Letty was just then too vexed and grieved to bear many words even from him. So he went in to Boy, and wound up his clockwork “merry-go-round” for him, and told him fabulous stories of giants, — giants who, though terrible enough to hold the world in awe, were yet unable to resist the fascinations of “hasty puddings,” and killed themselves by eating too much of that delicacy in an unguarded moment: which remarkable narratives, in their grotesque incongruity, conveyed the true lesson that a strong or giant mind may be frequently destroyed by indulgence in one vice, though Boy was too young to look for morals in fairy legends, and accepted these exciting histories as veracious facts. And so the morning passed pleasantly, after all; though now and then a wistful look came into Boy’s eyes, and a shadow crossed the placid fairness of “Kiss-Letty’s brow when either of the two chanced to think of the coming parting from each other.
Boy, however, did not imagine it so much of a parting as Miss Letty knew it would be; he had a firm belief that, though he was going home to “Muzzy,” he should still see a great deal of his “Kiss-Letty,” all the same. She, on the contrary, knew enough of Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir’s obstinate disposition to be quite certain of the fact that, because a hint had been thrown out by Major Desmond as to the advantages of her adopting Boy, she would be forced to see less of him than ever. Strange it is, and in a manner terrible, that the future of a whole life should be suspended thus between two human wills, the one working for pure beneficence, the other for selfishness, and that the selfish side should win the day! These are mysteries which none can fathom; but it too often happens that a man’s career has been decided for good or evil by the amenities or discords of his parents, and their quarrels or agreements as to the manner of his education.
It was with a sad and sinking heart that Miss Leslie took Boy, accompanied by the faithful “Dunny,” back to the home of his progenitors that afternoon. He had more luggage to carry away than he had arrived with: a brown paper parcel would not hold his numerous toys, nor the pretty little suits of clothes his kind hostess had presented him with. So Major Desmond bought him an astonishingly smart portmanteau, which fairly dazzled him, and into this most of his new things were packed by Margaret, who was sincerely sorry to lose her little charge. The “merry-go-round,” being a Parisian marvel of clockwork, had a special case of its own, and “Dunny” — well, “Dunny” was a privileged cow, and Boy always carried it in his arms. And thus he returned, Biblically speaking, to the home of his fathers, the house in Hereford Square, and his large “Muzzy” received him with an almost dramatic effusiveness.
“You poor child!” she exclaimed; “how badly your hair has been brushed! Oh, dear, it’s becoming a perfect mop! We must have it cut to-morrow.”
Miss Leslie’s cheeks reddened slightly.
“Surely you will not have his curls cut yet,” she began.
“My dear Letitia, I know best,” said Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, with an irritating air of smiling condescension. “A boy — even a very young boy — looks absurd with long hair. You have been very kind and nice to him, I am sure; but, of course, you don’t quite understand—”
Miss Leslie sat down opposite her with a curiously quiet air of deliberation.
“I wish to speak to you for a few minutes,” she said. “Is your husband at home?”
“No. He has gone into the country for a few days. I am quite lonely!” and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir heaved a lazy smile. “I felt I could not possibly be a day longer without my son in the house.” The extraordinary air of grandiloquence that she gave to the words “my son in the house,” applied to a child of barely four years old, would have made Miss Leslie laugh at any other time, but she was too preoccupied just now even to smile.
“I think,” she went on, in a methodical way, “I think Major Desmond did me the kindness to mention to you and Captain D’Arcy-Muir an idea I had concerning Boy—”
“Oh, yes, a most absurd idea!” interposed Mrs. D’Arcv-Muir, with quite a solemn reproach in her voice. “Pardon me for saying so, Letitia, but I really am surprised at you. A preposterous idea, — to separate my boy from me!”
“You mistake,” answered Miss Leslie; “I had no wish to separate you. You would have seen quite as much of Boy as you see now, or as you will see when in the natural course of things you send him to school. My sole desire in the proposition I made, and which I asked Major Desmond to explain, was to benefit your dear little child in every possible way. I am all alone in the world—”
“Yes, I know! So sad!” put in Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, in a tone of commiseration that was almost an insult.
“And I have a large fortune,” pursued Miss Letty, with unruffled composure; “when my time comes to die, I shall probably leave more than one hundred thousand pounds—”
“No! You don’t say so! Really, Letitia, you are indeed fortunate! Why ever don’t you marry? There are lots of poor fellows who would only be too delighted.”
“We can pass that question,” said Miss Leslie, patiently. “What I wish to point out to you is that I am what the world calls a fairly wealthy woman, and-that, if you could see your way to letting me adopt Boy and educate him, everything I possessed would be his at my death.”
“Oh, I don’t wonder at all,�
� said Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, expansively, “that you have taken such a fancy to my boy! That’s quite natural. And really, Letitia, if you don’t know how to dispose of your fortune otherwise, I cannot imagine anything more pleasant for you than to make him your heir. But to adopt him for the purpose of educating him according to your notions, — oh, dear, no! It would never do!”
“If he is not educated according to my notions, he will certainly not be my heir,” said Miss Letty, very firmly. “He is just now at an age when anything can be done with him. Give me leave to take him out of the radius of his father’s unfortunate example, and surround him with all that is healthy and good and useful, and I am sure you will not regret it.”
“Dear, no! I am so sorry for you!” and “Muzzy” smiled blandly. “I feel for you with all my heart, and I quite understand your wish to have Boy! It would be delightful for you, but I cannot possibly hear of it! I am his mother; I could not part with him under any circumstances whatever.”
“You are quite resolved then?” and Miss Leslie looked at her steadily.
“Quite! I have my own ideas of education, and I could not possibly allow the slightest interference. My son,” and here she swelled visibly with a sense of her own importance, “will have every chance in life.”
“God grant it!” said Miss Letitia, fervently. “No one in the world desires his good more heartily than I do. And if ever I can be of any assistance to him in his career, I will. But for the present I will say good-bye, — both to you and to him.”
“Are you going away?” inquired Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, with but a faint show of interest.
“Yes, I shall go to Scotland for the rest of the summer, and I have arranged to join a party of friends in Egypt this winter. So I shall not be here to interfere” — and Miss Letty smiled rather sadly as she emphasised the word—” with Boy. I hope he will not quite forget me.”
“I hope not,” said “Muzzy,” with bland commiseration. “But, of course, you know children never remember anything or anybody for long. And what a blessing that is, isn’t it?”
Miss Letty made no answer; she was down on the floor kissing Boy.
“Good-bye, darling,” she whispered, “goodbye! I shall not see you for a while; but you will always love me, won’t you?”
“Alwiz love ‘oo!” murmured Boy, earnestly, with a vague sense that he was experiencing a very dreadful emotion which seemed quite to contract his little heart. “Alwiz!” And he threw his chubby arms around Miss Letty’s neck and kissed her again and again.
“Dear little man!” she said, with almost a half sob. “Poor little man! God bless you!”
Then she rose, and, turning to Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, held out her hand.
“Good-bye!” she said. “If you should ever change your mind about Boy, please let me know at once. I shall be glad to have him at any time between now and till he is seven; after that it would be no use, as all his first impressions will have taken root too deeply in his nature to be eradicated.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed “Muzzy,” with a wide smile, “you are really quite a blue-stocking, Letitia! You talk just like a book of philosophy — or degeneration; which is it? I never can remember! I always wonder what people mean when they try to be philosophic and talk about impressions on the mind! Because, of course, impressions are always coming and going, you know; nothing ever remains longer, to make a lasting effect.”
Miss Letty said no more. It was useless to talk to such a woman about anything but the merest commonplaces. The ins and outs of thought; the strange slight threads of feeling and memory of which the character of a human being is gradually woven like a web; the psychic influences, the material surroundings, the thousand and one things that help to strengthen or to enervate the brain and heart and spirit, — all these potentialities were unknown to the bovine female who waxed fat and apathetic out of pure inertia and sloth. She was, as she was fond of announcing, a “mother;” but her ideas of motherhood consisted merely in feeding Boy on sloppy food which frequently did not agree with him, in dosing him with medicine when he was out of sorts, in dressing him anyhow, and in allowing him to amuse himself as he liked wherever he could, however he could, at all times and in all places, dirty or clean. A child of the gutter had the same sort of maternal care. Of order, of time, of refinement, of elegance and sweet cleanliness, there was no perception whatever; while the Alpha and Omega of the disordered household was, of course, “Poo Sing,” who rolled in and rolled out as he chose, more or less disgraceful in appearance and conduct, at all hours.
However, there was no help for it, — Miss Letty had held out a rescue, and it had been refused, — and there was nothing more to be done but to leave Boy, for the present at any rate, in his unfortunate surroundings. But there were tears in the eyes of the tender-hearted lady when she returned home alone that day, and missed the little face and the gay prattle that had so greatly cheered her loneliness. And after dinner, when the stately Plimpton handed her her cup of coffee, she was foolish enough to be touched by his solemnly civil presentation to her of a diminutive pair of worn shoes set in orderly fashion on a large silver tray.
“Master Boy left these behind him, my lady,” he said. He always called Miss Letty “my lady,” out of the deep deference existing towards her in his own mind. “They’re his hold ones.” Plimpton was fond of aspirating his h’s; he thought the trick gave an elegant sound to his language.
“Thank you, Plimpton,” said Miss Leslie, with a faint smile; “I will send them to his mother in the morning.”
But she did not send them to his mother. When she was quite alone, she kissed each little shoe tenderly, and tied them up together in soft silk paper with a band of blue ribbon, and then, like a fond weak creature, put them under her pillow when she went to bed, and cried a little; then slept and dreamed that her “brave true Harry” was alive and wedded to her, and that Boy was her very own darling, with no other “Muzzy” in the world.
CHAPTER VI.
DAYS went on, months went on, years went on, as they have a habit of doing, till Boy arrived at the mature age of nine.
Changes had occurred during this period which, slight in themselves, were destined to have their lasting effect upon his character and temperament. To begin with, Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had been compelled, through the force of circumstances, to leave the house in Hereford Square and give up living in London altogether. The Honourable Captain’s means had been considerably straightened through his “little ways,” and often and often during occasional flashes of sobriety it would occur to him that Boy was steadily growing, and that what a d — d pity it was that Miss Leslie had not adopted him, after all. Once or twice he had broached the subject to his wife, but only to be met by a large, placid smile and the remark, —
“Jim, I really am surprised at you! I thought you had more pride. But, really, you don’t seem to mind the idea of your only son being put in the position of a pauper!”
“Don’t see where the pauper comes in,” growled the Honourable Jim. “A hundred thousand pounds is surely enough to keep a man from the workhouse. And if that lot of money is going around begging, I don’t see why the little chap shouldn’t have it. I’ve nothing to leave him. Why the deuce don’t you let the old lady take him, and have done with it?”
“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, with a lachrymose air of deeply seated injury, “if you are so lost to decency as to wish to part from your own flesh and blood—”
“Oh, hang it all!” burst out the “Honourable” scion of century-condensed aristocracy. “D — n your flesh and blood! Have it your own way! Do as you d — n please! Only don’t bother me.”
In this way such marital discussions always ended, — and Boy struggled steadily along in growth and being and thought, wholly unconscious of them. He had lost sight of Miss Letty, but truly had not forgotten her, though in the remote village on the seacoast where his father had now elected to dwell in order that he might indulge in his pet vice without un
due public comment or observation, he found himself so utterly estranged from all delicate and helpful sympathies as to be almost rendered stunned and stupid. In the first year after he had left London he was taught some desultory lessons by a stolid-faced country wench who passed for being a nursery governess, but whose abilities were chiefly limited to ogling the young sailor and farmer lads of the place and inventing new fashions for arranging her coarsely abundant hair. Boy’s contempt for her knew no bounds. He would sit and watch her out of the corners of his eyes while she stood before a looking-glass, smirking at her own reflection, and quite unwittingly he developed a curious vein of satire which soon showed itself in some of the questions he put to her and to others. A sad little change had taken place in him, — the far-off, beautiful angel look of his countenance had all but vanished, and an expression of dull patience combined with weariness had taken its place. For by this time, of course, he had found out the true nature of “Poo Sing’s” chronic illness, and the knowledge of it had filled him with an inexpressible disgust and shame. Child though he was, he was not too young to feel a sick thrill when he saw his father march into the house at night with the face, voice, and manner of an infuriated ruffian bent on murder. And he no longer sat in a chair innocently murmuring “Poo Sing,” but slunk away from the evil sight, whispering faintly to himself, “Father! — Oh, father!” In dark corners of the house, and more often outside the house in a wooded little solitude of pines, where scarcely a bird’s wings fluttered to disturb the dark silence, Boy would sit by himself meditating and occasionally reading — for he had been quick to learn his letters, and study offered as yet no very painful difficulties to him. He was naturally a boy of bright brain and acute perception, but the brightness had been darkened and the perception blunted by the ever down-pressing weight of home influences brought about by his father’s degradation and his mother’s indifference. He began to see clearly now that it was not without good cause he had felt sorry for his “Muzzy’s” ugliness, for that ugliness was the outcome of her own fault. He used to wander down to the border of the sea, mechanically carrying a tin pail and wooden spade, and there would sit shovelling in sand and shovelling it out again, and while thus engaged would sometimes find there one or two ladies walking with their children, — ladies in trim serge skirts, and tidily belted blouses, and neat sailor hats set gracefully on prettily arranged hair, — and he could not for the life of him understand why his mother should allow her dress to be less orderly than that of the cook, and her general appearance less inviting and odorous than that of the old woman who came round twice a week to sell prawns and shrimps at the door. And so he brooded and brooded — till on one sudden and alarming day the stolid nursery governess was found on his father’s knee, with his father’s arms clasped round her, and such an appalling clamour ensued that Boy, who was, of course, not told the real reason of the disorder, stood terrified and thought everyone in the house had gone raving mad, and that he, poor, small chap, was left alone in the middle of a howling wilderness. The stolid nursery governess on being discovered had promptly fainted, and lay on the floor with her large feet well upturned and more than an inch of stocking exposed, the “Honourable” Jim rattled out all his stock of oaths till he was black and blue in the face with impotent swearing, and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, plumping heavily down in the nearest convenient chair, lifted up her voice and wept. And in the middle of her weeping, happening to perceive Boy standing on the threshold of the room, very pale-faced and half paralysed with fright, she caught him up in her arms and exclaimed, “My poor, dear, injured son!” with a wifely and maternal gusto that was more grotesque than impressive. Boy somehow felt that he was being made ridiculous, though he could not have told why. And when the stolid-faced nursery governess had prolonged her fainting fit as much as was desirable and endurable, when with many grunts and sighs, spasmodic kicks and plunges, she righted herself, so to speak, first into a sitting posture, and then gradually rose to her feet, a tearful martyr to wrongful suspicions, and, with one injured-innocence look of reproach at Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir and a knowing side-wink at the irate and roaring “Jim,” left the room and afterwards the house, never to return. Boy lived for many days in a state of deep wonderment, not knowing what to make of it. It was a vast puzzle to his young mind; but he was conscious of a certain advantage to himself in the departure of the ill-used young woman, who had so casually superintended his few lessons in the intervals of dressing her hair. He was left very much more alone, and took to wondering—” daunering,” as the Scotch would say — all about the village and down by the edge of the sea, like a small waif of the world neglected and astray. He was free to amuse himself as he liked, so he strolled into all sorts of places, dirty and clean, and got his clothes torn and ragged, his hands and face scratched and soiled, and if it chanced that he fell into a mud-puddle or a sea-pool, which he often did, he never thought of telling his mother that he was wet through, because she never noticed it, and he therefore concluded that it did not matter. And he began to grow thin and wiry and brown and unkempt, till there was very little difference in appearance between him and the common boys of the village, who were wont to haunt the sea-shore and pick up stray treasures in the way of weed and shell and wreckage there, boys with whom he very soon began to fraternise, much to his detriment. They were not bad boys, but their language was brutal and their manners more so. They called him a “ninny” when he first sought their society, and one big lout beat him on the head for his too sharp discovery of a shilling buried in the sand. But these were trifles, and after proving that he was not afraid of a ducking, or a stand-up fight either, they relented towards him and allowed him to be an associate of their scavenger pursuits. Thus he learnt new forms of language and new customs of life, and gradually adopted the lazy, slouching walk of his shore-companions, together with their air of general indifference, only made occasionally piquant by a touch of impudence. Boy began to say sharp things now and then, though his little insolences savoured more of satire than malice. He did not mean to be rude at any time, but a certain vague satisfaction moved him when he found that he could occasionally make an observation which caused his elders to wince, and privately wonder whether their grey hairs were not standing on end. He rather repressed this power, however, and thought a good deal more than he said. He began to consider his mother in a new light; her ways no longer puzzled him so much as they amused him. It was with almost a humorous condescension that the child sat down obediently to his morning lessons with her, lessons which she, with much elaboration and importance, had devised for his instruction. Truth to tell, they were very easy samples of learning, — her dense brain was not capable of arranging anything more than the most ordinary forms of study, — and Boy learnt more of the world in an hour’s listening to the chat of the fishermen on the quay than his “Muzzy” could have taught him in a hundred years. There was in particular one old, old man, wrinkled and weather-beaten, whose sole life’s business seemed to be to sit on a tar-barrel and smoke his pipe, except when he gave a hand to help pull in the fishing smacks as they came to shore laden with herring or mackerel. He was known in the place by the nick-name of “Rattling Jack,” and to him Boy would often go, and with half-bold, half-shy questions would draw him out to tell stories of the sea, though the old chap was not very fond of harking back to his past life and adventures, and generally preferred to expound short essays on the conduct of life, drawn from his long experience.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 435
