THE DOCTOR'S HEAD!
As Chris regained his strength he also regained his love of mischief—a state of affairs that proved somewhat trying. To keep him in bed and to keep him good was not a very easy task.
"The trouble it is, mum, words can't tell," Briggs said to me with fervour one evening when I had come upstairs to see that Chris was comfortably settled for the night. "If I turn my back for a moment he is half out of bed," she said, as she detained me for a moment as I went through the day-nursery. "He is that full of mischief I hardly know what to do with him."
"It shows he is getting strong again," I said, half smiling.
"It's the only way I can get any comfort," she said, sighing.
Poor Briggs! She really looked tired as she spoke, and I felt sorry for her.
"You look very tired," I remarked.
"I've had bad enough nights lately to make me so," she replied. "Master Chris—he is always waking up and coughing and coughing till I'm nearly driven wild. It's my belief it's the barley-sugar has got something to do with it. Ever since the doctor said some had better be given to him when he got coughing it seems to me his cough has got a deal worse."
"Why don't you put a little by his crib?" I suggested; "then he needn't wake you up when he wants it."
"I did try that last night," she answered, "but by the time I went to bed myself he had eaten it all up, and there wasn't a scrap of it left."
"I think he will be well enough to get up soon," I said hopefully.
"I think so too," she replied. "It was only yesterday I said so to Dr. Saunders, but he didn't seem to think the same.
"I don't altogether hold with him," she continued, with a return of her usual dignified manner; "and so I told my mistress this morning. He is over-careful, and I've no belief in these medical gentlemen who are given that way. When he comes to-morrow—There, if I didn't forget!" she interrupted herself to exclaim.
"What have you forgotten, Briggs?" I asked.
"My mistress asked me in particular to remind the doctor that he said Master Chris would be the better of a tonic, but he had forgotten to leave the prescription," she answered. "I never thought of it this morning when he was here."
"I should make a note of it," I suggested.
"Which is the very thing I'll do," she assented. "I'll write it down now on Master Chris's slate whilst it is in my mind. It's the only way to remember things, I do believe.
"Though it is my opinion, mum," she added, as she carried out her intention; "though it's my opinion a physician should not need reminding of such things. But there! he is always forgetting something. He has no head! I should like to know where it is sometimes, for it isn't always on his shoulders, I'll be bound!"
"How can the doctor's head not be on his shoulders?" asked a puzzled little voice. "'Cause he'd be quite dead if he had no head."
At this unexpected interruption Briggs and I looked in the direction whence the voice proceeded, and saw a little figure standing on the threshold of the door that led into the night-nursery. A little figure, in a long white nightgown, with tumbled, golden hair falling about the flushed little face, and two great violet eyes shining like stars, and dancing with mischief and glee.
I confess I felt a weak desire to take that naughty but bewitching little beggar in my arms, and kiss him in spite of all his sins. But Briggs experienced no such weakness.
"Master Chris!" she exclaimed in horrified amazement; "what next, I should like to know? This is past everything."
Then snatching him up in her arms, she carried him back to bed, struggling and vehemently protesting at being treated in so summary and undignified a fashion.
As for me, I presently went downstairs laughing, with the sound of Chris's voice still ringing in my ears:
"Put me down, Briggs. I will be a good boy. I don't want to be carried like a baby." Then with his usual persistency: "But I want to know—why do you say that the doctor sometimes has no head on his shoulders, 'cause how could he live without a head?" Then again, in the most insinuating of voices: "Shall I tell the doctor about the medicine he forgot, and shall I write down all the things you want to know, and all the things I want to know, and everything. Would I be a good boy if I did? I want some barley-sugar, 'cause my cough's drefful bad."
"Chris is certainly recovering," I said to Granny when I joined her in the drawing-room, and told her what had occurred. "He is quite in his usual spirits again."
"His is a happy disposition, is it not?" she said, with satisfaction. "The child is like a sunbeam in the house; so merry, so bright!"
The next morning, however, the sunbeam was comparatively still; not dancing, gay, and restless, as sunbeams often are.
The little beggar was in one of his quiet moods—moods of rare occurrence with him, as you will have gathered.
"The darling is like a lamb," Granny remarked when she came downstairs; "very gentle and so good. He wants you to go and sit with him a little, if you are not busy, my dear."
"Certainly," I said, and went up to the nursery to see Chris in this edifying rôle.
I found him busy, drawing strange hieroglyphics on a large sheet of foolscap paper with a red-lead pencil. As I entered he looked up at me for a moment with a preoccupied expression, then said mysteriously:
"Miss Beggarley, what do you think I am doing?"
"I don't know," I replied. "What is it? Let me see."
"No, no, no!" he cried, bending over the paper, "you mustn't see. I don't want you to know."
"Then why did you ask me?" I inquired.
"'Cause I wanted to see if you could guess," he said.
"It's nothing naughty, is it?" I asked.
"Oh no!" he replied in the most virtuous of voices, "it's very good.
"I've done now," he remarked a few minutes later, sitting up and putting the sheet of foolscap and the red-lead pencil under his pillow. "When I get better will you play horses with me? You said you would, and you never have."
"That is very wrong of me," I answered. "Yes, I will play with you when you are better."
"When will the doctor come?" he suddenly asked with some eagerness.
"Very soon now, I think," I replied. "It is just about his time."
"Will you be a lame horse when you play, or a well horse?"
"Which of the two horses has the least work?"
"The lame horse."
"Then I'll be the lame horse."
"Is that the doctor?"
I listened. "Wait a moment, I'll see," I replied, and went to the day-nursery.
Yes, it was the doctor. I could hear him and Granny talking as they walked along the passage; Granny on her favourite topic—the virtues of her darling.
"Yes," she was saying, in answer to some observation of her companion's, "he really shows a great deal of character for one so young. But he has done that from the earliest, from the very earliest age. When he was a baby of but a few weeks old, he would clutch hold of his bottle with such resolution, such tenacity, that it was, I assure you, a difficult matter to take it from him."
"Quite so, quite so," the doctor answered blandly as they entered; "as you say, great tenacity of purpose.
"Well," I heard him continue, after having passed through the day-nursery to the one beyond; "well, and how are we to-day?"
"Quite well," answered the little beggar's voice cheerfully.
"Quite well? We couldn't be better, could we?" he said jocularly. "Yes, I think we are looking so much better we may get up to-day, and go for a walk in the sun to-morrow. What do you say, Master Chris?"
"I want to ask you a lot," I heard Chris say importantly.
"Very well," replied the doctor good-naturedly, "let us hear it;" at which point curiosity prompted me to go to the door of the night-nursery and look in.
Chris was in the act of drawing, with no little pomp, the large sheet of foolscap from beneath his pillow.
"Read it," he said, handing it to the doctor with pride. "I've printed it all myself."
The doctor laughed as he glanced at it.
"I think," he said, "you had better read it to me yourself, my little man."
"All right!" answered Chris. "It's all questions I want to ask you. I've written them down in case I forget them."
I here saw Briggs glance up uneasily, and was myself conscious of some feeling of disquietude. Could Chris's questions have anything to do with Briggs' remarks of the previous evening? A recollection came back to me which, till that moment, had slipped from my mind. Had not I heard a suggestion made by a naughty, struggling little mortal being carried back to bed against his will? "Shall I write down all the things you want to know, and all the things I want to know, and everything?"
A presentiment of coming confusion came upon me, and I half stepped forward to try and stop Chris going further in his proposed catechism. But I was too late; he started without delay.
"May I have sugar-candy for my cough instead of barley-sugar, 'cause I've eaten so much barley-sugar?" he began pompously.
"Certainly," replied the doctor laughing; "we won't make any difficulty about that."
I gave an involuntary sigh of relief at hearing so harmless a question, whilst Briggs looked less anxious, and Granny smiled.
"Shall I be well enough to run my hoop to-morrow?" he went on, loudly and slowly, pretending to read from the sheet of foolscap he held. "I have a new one, and I'm tired of not running it," he added.
"Very well, we'll see," the doctor answered. "If the sun is out I daresay we shall be able to run our hoop a little bit to-morrow. But we must be careful not to over-tire ourselves. Anything more, my little man?"
"Yes. Why did you forget to leave the 'scription for my tonic yesterday?" continued Chris. "And will you remember it to-day?"
The doctor laughed, but with some constraint. Briggs looked up anxiously, and the smile vanished from Granny's face.
"What! Are we so fond of medicine?" the doctor asked, trying to speak as before, but unable to prevent a touch of annoyance being heard in his voice. "Little boys don't generally care for it so much. Yes, I will leave the prescription to-day."
"There, there, that will do," interposed Granny nervously, moving towards the door.
"But there is one other question I want to ask very much," Chris said, again feigning to refer to his paper.
"Yes?" said the doctor inquiringly, pausing in his progress towards the door.
"What do you do with your head when it isn't on your shoulders?" he asked, with the innocent expression always to be seen upon his face when he was creating the greatest awkwardness.
At this question Briggs became scarlet, looked as if she were about to speak, then appeared to alter her mind, and, turning her back, busied herself arranging the medicine-bottles on a little table near the crib. The doctor himself appeared more bewildered than anything else.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Where can my head be except on my shoulders?"
"Well, that was what I thought," Chris said, triumphantly. "I said you'd be dead if your head was off your shoulders."
"I should have concluded that everyone must have been of the same opinion," he said, still mystified, whilst Granny shook her head gently, and frowned at the little beggar, hoping to prevent any further discussion of the subject. A futile hope. Chris was resolved to go to the bottom of the matter.
"Well, Briggs said it wasn't!" he exclaimed, "and what did she mean?"
The doctor's expression of mystification changed to one of annoyance, as he remarked with no little displeasure:
"I think you had better ask Briggs herself for an explanation of her remark," then left, accompanied by Granny—poor Granny, awkward and mortified beyond measure at the embarrassing situation.
As for Briggs—who had certainly been the principal sufferer—her indignation burst out as soon as we saw the last of the doctor.
"Well, I never!" she exclaimed indignantly. Then with increased wrath, "Well, I never did!" After which two exclamations she paused to find suitable words in which to condemn the enormities of which Chris had been guilty.
For his part, he was not in the least disturbed by the general embarrassment—the only one who was not.
He gazed up at Briggs with an expression of injured innocence.
"Are you cross, Briggs?" he asked. "Have I been naughty?"
"Have you been naughty, Master Chris?" she asked, with wrathful sarcasm. "Oh, no! there never was such a well-behaved young gentleman."
"Surely, Chris," I said, coming into the night-nursery, "you knew that you had no business to repeat to Dr. Saunders what Briggs said to me?"
He hung his head a little guiltily.
"I wanted him to 'member about the tonic," he replied; "and I did want to know what Briggs meant about his head coming off his shoulders. Wasn't I a good boy?"
He received his answer, however, from Granny, who returned at this moment, a bright spot glowing in each of her faded, pink cheeks.
"My Chris!" she said, "my darling! What foolish thought made you ask such questions?"
Chris wrinkled his brows. "I want to be a very good boy and please you," he said querulously, and with a tremble in his voice; "and now Briggs scolds me, and now you scold me, and now I'm very unhappy."
"But don't you see, my pet," Granny said, more calmly; "don't you see what rude questions you asked Dr. Saunders? Oh, I felt ashamed of my little Chris!"
The little beggar at this point crawled to the bottom of his crib.
"I shall stay down here," said a muffled voice. "I shall stay here always and never come back again, as my Granny is so unkind."
"But you must see," she reiterated, addressing a shapeless mass of bed-clothes, "that you asked the kind doctor very naughty questions, and very silly ones too. Did you not understand when Briggs said that he had no head, she meant that he had a bad memory, my child? Did you not understand that? And did you not think how insulting, how very insulting it was to ask him such a question? And about the tonic too. Surely, my darling, if you had thought you must have seen that. And, especially, how wrong it was to repeat what you overheard. Does not my pet see what his Granny means?"
The mass of bed-clothes moved impatiently, but there was no reply.
"As for me," put in Briggs with dignity, "I felt as if I was going to sink through the floor, I was that ashamed!"
"Yes, yes, and so were we all," agreed Granny. "Indeed, had not my Chris been ill, I should have felt obliged to punish him for his thoughtlessness. But he is sorry now; that Granny feels sure of. Is he not?"
Her question was received in sullen silence.
"Come, come," she said, "this is not the way I expect my child to behave."
"Nor any other little gentleman either," put in Briggs, with asperity.
There was an expectant pause, but no answer from the little beggar buried beneath the bed-clothes.
Granny looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Well, Chris, we have no time to waste with naughty little boys," I said, "so we are going downstairs. But I am surprised that you should treat your Granny so; I thought you loved her."
There was still no reply, and we turned to go.
But ere we reached the door the shamefaced but slightly defiant little beggar cried out:
"I do love my Granny!"
At the sound she turned back with a radiant smile, and saw with delight two little arms stretched out to her appealingly, and two large tears trickling down a penitent little face.
"There, there! we will say no more," she exclaimed, forgivingly; "for you are sorry, my pet, are you not?"
"Very, very sorry," said the little beggar with contrition; "and very hot, dreffully hot; and I won't ask the nasty doctor nothing ever again."
"Not the 'nasty' doctor; the nice, kind doctor who has made little Chris well again," she corrected gently. "And you are going to be a good little boy now, darling?"
"A very good boy; as good as Uncle Godfrey," Chris said brightening up, as he saw that he was to be blamed no more.
"That's my pet," she said, covering him up and tucking in the bed-clothes.
"I'm so glad," she continued to me as we went downstairs, "that he came round, and was good in the end. But I knew he would. Sulkiness is not one of his faults; no, no, nobody could say that.
"I suppose," she went on a little uneasily, "Godfrey would tell me that I ought to have been more severe with the child. 'You've let the little beggar off too easily, mother,'—that's what he would say. But between ourselves, my dear, I sometimes think that officers in the army are accustomed to such obedience, such implicit obedience, that they are at times inclined to carry their love of discipline too far. Don't you agree with me? Not that Godfrey is a martinet! Oh, no! he is far from that; such a favourite, so beloved by the men under his command. But you understand what I mean, do you not?
"However," she concluded, with a certain relief, and as a salve to her conscience in the shape of her son Godfrey's opinion, "now I think of it, I did tell the poor darling that if he had not been ill I should have felt obliged to punish him. Of course, so I did. That will serve as a warning to him in the future; won't it, my dear?"