CHAPTER III.
AS A LITTLE CHILD.
The day after the episode with Pollie Captain Grant’s letter duly arrived.
He was only too delighted to think that his suggestion had borne fruit with his old friend.
“It’s just settled that the Slains Castle will leave Peterhead on the twenty-eighth of this month,” he wrote. “That will give you plenty of time. But as we don’t touch anywhere in Great Britain, you will have to join me here. Don’t take the long railway journey. Like a wise man, come as far as Aberdeen in the steamer, and then you have not much further to travel. As for the hundred pounds, I tell you, my dear fellow, that we don’t intend to be away longer than one year, and that is the precise figure I should name. But I’ll go on to add that if we should happen to be a little longer, you shall not be charged a shilling more. Persuade Mrs. Challoner to come north with you and to bring the boy, and then she’ll see you fairly aboard, and will note what snug quarters you’ll have, and be able to see you with her mind’s eye all the time you are away. My wife hopes she will come.”
“You see there is no doubt that you are to go, Charlie,” said Mrs. Challoner. “Everything has worked to that end without one hitch. You are to go, because you are to come back strong and well. It is clearly the will of God that you go. I am so glad that my plans have been carried out beyond my own power. If it had all been my planning, I might have doubted afterwards.”
“But, Lucy,” said the young husband, his pleasant frank face shining with the mysterious light which often illumines the countenances which have just been bravely turned to confront the darkness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, “I own, with you, that it does seem to be God’s will, but we must not think so now, unless we can continue to think so whatever be the result. Let us say together solemnly, ‘God’s will be done: not our will, but His.’”
And there was a little silence.
Lucy resolutely refused to consider the Grants’ invitation to Peterhead. She warmly seconded their suggestion that Charlie should travel in the snug, well-attended saloon of the magnificent coasting steamer rather than in the train. She refused to listen to his plea, that unless she would come with him this mode of travel would part them a day or two sooner than if he went by rail. She even nerved herself to say that when a matter of a year’s separation was in hand, what could a day more or less signify? It would be best that they should part in their own home, where life could go straight on, and she could set to work at once. It would be dreadful to come back to the house alone. (“Pollie would have a welcome for you,” interposed young Challoner.) Besides, who knew whether she and little Hugh might not prove to be the very worst of sailors, and then Charlie would go off quite unhappy, thinking of the misery of their return journey.
In all these arguments Lucy knew there was force and good sense, but she knew, too, that but for the secret knowledge that her whole household life was crumbling about her, they would not for one moment have sufficed to withhold her from clinging to her husband’s presence till the latest possible moment.
“Now, Pollie,” she said to her servant, “I am able to tell you why I wish silence about your departure. It is finally arranged that my husband is going for a long sea-voyage. He will be away for about a year. When we first began to think of this it was a great consideration that I and the boy should have you—our household friend of seven years’ standing—to be with us. That thought was a great comfort. Now as we find this cannot be, I think we may save Mr. Challoner the distress of knowing about it before he goes. It might make him wish to postpone his going. And he ought to be off before the winter.”
Pollie was sniffing.
“I wish I’d known. I was huffed a bit thinking I wasn’t to be much consideration in any changes you was making.”
“But what made you think of changes?” asked Mrs. Challoner. “This is no change. All will go on the same, though with your master away for a year, and then we shall hope that all will go on the same when he returns. It is only since this very morning, Pollie, that we have been quite sure this voyage can be arranged. You are the very first person I have told. We think those in a household, whose interests are naturally bound up together, should be the first to hear such news.”
“Didn’t you mention it to Mrs. Brand, m’m?” asked Pollie.
“Certainly not,” Lucy answered. “There was no use mentioning it to anybody when it might have come to nothing.”
Lucy rather wondered at this question. It did not occur to her that Mrs. Brand had had the girl to herself on the afternoon when Lucy had gone to see Dr. Ivery, nor that it could have been she who had put the idea of “changes” into the head of her sister’s servant. And Pollie kept the secret, as servants often do, or it would go hard with many a gadding and gossipping “lady.”
“You may trust me not to speak, m’m,” said poor Pollie, still sniffing. But she put such emphasis on “me” that it reminded her mistress that Mrs. Brand also knew of Pollie’s imminent departure and would be almost sure to blurt it out before Charlie. Lucy hated to ask her sister to keep a secret from him. It would be as useless, too, as painful, for Florence would be sure to “forget” or “not to think.” As such “forgetfulness” or “want of thought” always pleads “meaning no harm,” and resents indignation as harsh and uncharitable, there is nothing to be done but to prevent their harmful doings by keeping them out of the way.
And while Lucy was pondering what steps she could take in this direction, she got warning that Charlie might get an impression of trouble of some sort and question the facts out of poor Pollie however loyally she might try to keep them back. For Pollie seemed unable to keep from “sniffing,” and when she went into the drawing-room the sight of Mr. Challoner brought on a very bad attack.
“Why, what’s the matter, Pollie?” asked he, quite innocently. “No bad news from home, I hope?”
“Oh, no, sir! Yes—oh, it’s a-thinking of you a-going away, sir!” said Pollie desperately, and rushed from the room.
“I had no idea that Pollie cared a bit for me,” observed her master. “I thought she regarded me as a wage-paying machine, and that you and the boy were the idols. It is quite flattering to find that I came in for a bit of the adoration.”
“Of course Pollie cares for you after living in the house with us for seven years, and you always so considerate and polite,” said Lucy.
“Considerate and polite!” echoed Charlie. “Well, I do hope I’m not quite a brute in my own home, and I don’t know how many other fellows I’ve rebuked for calling their landladies’ servants ‘the slavey.’ And they’ve often said to me, ‘Well, but it’s true,’ and I say, ‘Then it oughtn’t to be true.’”
“Of course it should not be true,” Lucy responded.
“It is quite touching to think Pollie cares for my going away,” Charlie went on. “But I tell you, Lucy, it occurs to me that it is not my going that has grieved her, but the thought of your being left alone.” He paused for a moment. “She thinks you’ll be so dull,” he said, fearing lest his words might have brought to Lucy’s mind the idea they had wakened in his own—to wit, that probably Pollie regarded this temporary separation as likely to be for the earthly forever. “Well, I can only say again,” he went on, “that my greatest comfort is that she is with you. What a blessing we have not changed our servant perpetually as the Brands do! How could I go off and leave you with an utter stranger, who might desert you the next week?”
“We never know what changes may come,” said Lucy, to whom silence began to seem criminal. “But we must trust God to provide for emergencies. They never are so bad as they look beforehand.”
“That is quite true,” answered Charlie, “and that’s just how I feel—a special trial has come to us, and a special blessing is prepared for it in the shape of Pollie.”
Lucy could endure no more. She jumped up and went out of the room so hurriedly that Charlie thought she must have heard a ring at the door-bell. She really went to little Hugh’s bedroom, and sat down in the darkness beside the cot where he was already asleep. She began to revolve schemes. She would get Charlie to go with her and the boy to spend the interval before his departure at the seaside. That would take him away in safety from Florence’s chatter and Pollie’s tears. It had other substantial recommendations, too, such as she could urge. It was highly desirable that before his great journey Charlie should shake off the little ways and weaknesses of invalidism as a “change” helps a convalescent to do. Then she would add what she knew would be a supreme argument with him—that her teaching duties at the Institute would begin at the Christmas quarter, and that she ought not to take up these labours when below par in nerve and health after her anxious nursing. She would plead, too, the charm of the little family of three being together quite by themselves in a strange place, where they would be safe from any calls or condolences or curiosity, and could wander about or rest, just at their own sweet will. Of course, this trip would cost a little money, but not very much, and apart from all its other charms, Lucy felt that it would soothe her own heart in the pain of having been forced to refuse to accompany her husband to his port of departure.
“You are a funny little woman,” said her husband, when she went downstairs again and made these suggestions. “What else will you think out so cleverly? I shall like this of all things; and all the while I am away, it will be so much cheerier to have last thoughts of each other taking quiet holiday by the sea, than of each of us mewed up in a sick-room, coddling and being coddled.”
“And I’ll be able to do two or three sketches,” Lucy went on. “I should like to do them with you looking on, to know if you think my hand has lost any of its cunning. It will get me up to the mark, too. I daresay I may do something that will more than pay for our trip.”
“Never say that women are not practical!” laughed Mr. Challoner. “While I am only thinking of sentiment, the wifie has gone on to the shillings! But ah, Lucy dear, don’t think I don’t know that you want the shillings only for the sake of the sentiment!”
They sat together hand in hand. They had been married seven years, and they were on the eve of separation. Both hearts were full of feelings to which they dared not give utterance. One must not stir a brimming cup lest it overflow.
“I vote we go to Deal!” cried Charlie at last.
“Isn’t it rather an east windy place for an invalid?” asked Lucy.
“But I’m not an invalid, and am not going to pass as one,” he said gaily. “I’m a fellow starting on a sea-voyage! No, no, Lucy, don’t doom me to some sheltered cubby hole of a ‘resort,’ where half the population are in bath-chairs and the other half in respirators. It would give us the blues! If you’ll let us go to Deal, I’ll promise to be very good,” he went on with his indomitable boyishness. “I’ll only go out when you say I may, and I’ll come in the minute you say I must. Only let us go there!”
In the depths of his heart lay the secret thought that to go to any place where consumptives are wont to congregate, would inevitably fill Lucy’s mind with dire forebodings, besides exposing her to the depressing influences of the conventional “sympathy” or forced “hopefulness” which emanate from well-meaning landladies and others trained by experience to regard their habitat as one of the last stages on life’s journey.
All the next day Lucy hurriedly made her little preparations for the trip. She said to Charlie that, if Deal suited him, and if they got snug apartments, they might stay on till the very end, so that he need only use their own house to rest and sleep in on his way through London to the north.
“As for any sea-going things you want—lockers, waterproofs, and so on—we can get them at Deal,” she said.
Only when all was in readiness for their start, while the cab which was to take them to the station actually stood at the door, did she post a letter to Mrs. Brand, giving the first intimation of their present move and of Charlie’s future journey.
“We have had it in view for some time,” she wrote, for it was impossible for Lucy Challoner to be inferentially untruthful, “but it was only decided the day before yesterday.”
After the railway journey, whose slight fatigue the convalescent bore capitally, they went straight to an hotel and had lunch, and there Lucy left her husband and little Hugh, while she went in quest of “apartments.” She wanted cleanliness, economy, and a sea view. Like all people who know what they want she was not long in getting suited. She decided on the second set of rooms at which she looked, preferring them to the first, because being upstairs, they commanded a wider horizon. Also she felt attracted to the second landlady, a quiet, grave, middle-aged woman of few words, whose chambers, with their well-kept old-fashioned furniture had—what is the greatest charm of hired rooms—no suggestion of previous temporary occupancy.
The landlady had everything made snug before their arrival; the curtains were drawn, a cheerful fire was ablaze, and the lit lamp stood in the centre of the table spread with pretty blue crockery and provided with ham, eggs and toast. There are few who can wholly resist the genial influence of such surroundings. Charlie and Lucy Challoner yielded themselves up to them, and little Hugh danced and clapped his hands. Lucy felt as if she was happier than she had ever thought to be again. Safe from the impending worries of the last few days, it seemed as if the great anxiety which hung like a Damocles’ sword over her life was for the time held off.
“I believe this is really doing you good, Lucy,” said her husband. “For me, I feel a different man already.”
The bed-chamber opened from the parlour, and Hugh was not allowed to be long in seeking the little cot which the landlady had fixed up for him in his parents’ room. But while Lucy passed to and fro unpacking and preparing for the night, Mr. Challoner and Hugh got behind the window curtains and shut themselves away from the cheery room and out with the misty sea view. Lucy could hear them talking behind the drapery.
“There go the ships!” said the young father. “Look, Hugh, you can see them by their lights! Look what a lot of them there are! And how many lights they are showing!”
“How glad the sailors must be to see land again!” lisped Hugh. “They must feel they are safe at last!”
“Glad to feel they are nearly home at last, Hugh,” corrected his father. “For ships are in much more danger when they are near land than when they are out in mid-ocean. What looks safest isn’t always safe, my boy.”
“I’d like to go on a ship!” said Hugh.
“I daresay you will go in time, sonny,” returned Mr. Challoner. “By-and-by, Hughie, I am going on a big ship—a big ship with three masts—and I am going for a long, long voyage. And you’ll have to take care of mamma while I am away. And then when I come back, and you grow up, very likely you will go for some long voyage, and then I will stay at home and take care of mamma.”
“Are you going to-morrow, papa?” said the little voice in an awed whisper, and Lucy heard a movement as if the curly head snuggled on papa’s shoulder. How good it was of Charlie to tell the child himself! The thought of having to do so had haunted her, for she measured her little lad’s love for his father by what she knew it meant in his life rather than by that childish inadequacy for profound emotion which makes a child such a poignantly pathetic figure when it appears on any tragic scene.
“To-morrow!” echoed papa in his brightest tone. “No, indeed, not for many days—two or three weeks! We are going to have such a happy time. We’ll go out and pick up shells, and if there is a very warm sunshiny day with only little waves on the sea, maybe we’ll go out in a boat—that’s if mamma will come with us,” he added, remembering his promised obedience to her discretion.
Hugh broke away from his father and ran back into the room.
“Oh, mamma,” he cried, “you will let us go out in a boat, won’t you? If the day’s sunshiny—an’ it’s sure to be—and if the waves are ever such little teeny weenies! Oh, mamma, yes!”
“We shall see, Hugh. We will do what seems wise. It is time you went to bed.”
In commanding her voice to be steady, it sounded sharp and hard. It checked Hugh’s ecstasy, and brought his father out from behind the curtain. She felt that Charlie’s expression was surprised, and that she would break down utterly if she had to meet his eyes. Without looking back, she caught the hand of the silenced and awed Hugh, and hurried him away to the other room.
Neither of them spoke while she helped the child undress. Even her eyes did not answer his, though she saw his blue orbs raised wistfully. He knelt down and said his little prayer, the “Our Father,” and the little verse of godly nursery tradition—
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
Then he passed on to the extempore petitions, in which he was always allowed free expression. To-night they came with unwonted faltering and hesitation. The child-soul was aware of a disturbed atmosphere around it—of groping somehow in darkness uncertain of itself.
“Please, God, bless dear papa—and dear mamma—and dear Pollie—and dear Aunt Florence—and—and dear Mr. Brand—and dear Mrs. May—and make me a good boy. Amen.”
“Dear Mrs. May?” Who was that? Lucy had to pause for a moment ere she remembered that this was the name of the landlady, whom the child had seen for the first time two hours before, and who had won his heart by bringing in for him a special tea plate painted with a picture of Walmer Castle!
It was only as Hugh stood in his little night-gown, half stepping into the cot, that he said, almost with a whimper—
“I never kissed good night to papa.”
“Then run away and kiss him now,” said Lucy in her natural tone.
Hugh was himself again in a second, scampering away, kicking aside his flowing white robes with his little pink feet, and bestowing upon his father what was evidently an ecstasy of hugs, accompanied by a perfect storm of hearty “smacks.” Then he gallopaded back, hopped into bed, held out his arms to his mother, and clasped her down to himself in a rapturous embrace, to which she responded with an added tenderness born of a little remorse for the foolish pang he had given her.
“But you will let us go in the boat?” he whispered before he released her.
She kissed him again as her only answer, and went back into the sitting-room. Her husband looked up at her with some solicitude, and drew up a chair for her at his side.
“I’m afraid you have been very much overwrought, Lucy,” he said. “It’s no use saying ‘No.’ I can hear it in your voice. When you went out of the room, I thought you were actually crying. I was quite uneasy till I saw you come in again all right.”
“I’m afraid I’m not fit to be your nurse if I frighten my patient,” she said, forcing a smile. “I was very silly. I was not crying. I’m rather afraid I was cross for a minute.”
“Cross?” questioned her husband incredulously.
“Yes,” she answered. “It vexed me to think how soon Hugh forgot about your going away and thought only of getting a sail in a boat.”
Charlie pondered for a second, for the whole thing had escaped him.
“I know I was foolish,” she said. “Hughie is only a little child, and cannot realise things. I’m sure he would have begun to cry if you’d said you were going away to-morrow. But when you said ‘not for two or three weeks’ he could put it right out of his head. It’s only childlike, after all.”
“But we ought all to be childlike, ought we not, Lucy?” answered Charlie thoughtfully. “And we are, more or less, even the worst of us. All who love know they will have to part; but they don’t go on thinking about it all the years they are together. And days are as long as years to poor little Hughie.”
“And then he was so taken up about going in the boat!” said Lucy, with a half-reluctant smile.
“Well, and why not?” asked Charlie undauntedly, “We ought to be like that, too—taken up with what is our present business—this is a great business for Hughie—and especially with what we may bring about by our own efforts, as he felt he might by his coaxings. That is our affair—not something that is going to happen some time or other, without any help of ours.”
“I know I’m an idiot,” said Lucy humbly; “but so much seemed to come at once! He actually prayed in the same breath for you and for Mrs. May—the strange landlady downstairs,” she explained. And she reminded him of the little incident of the picture plate.
Charlie leaned back in his chair and enjoyed a quiet deep laugh.
“And there he is altogether right,” he said, “for love is all off the same piece whether it’s in a great fold that ties two lives together—like yours and mine, Lucy—or but some little scrap that just binds up a pricked finger. For God is Love, and therefore Love is God, and any affection that gets taken outside that unity is—just—an idol!”
“‘And the idols He shall utterly abolish,’” he added after a moment’s pause. As he spoke, he drew back the curtain. The moon was up, silvering the mist that hung low over the Channel. They sat side by side in silence. Lucy was trying to gather from her husband’s words some cheer for the one trial she could not feel it right to confide to him—the only secret she had ever withheld from him. After a fashion of which most of us have had pathetic experience, she strove to get an oracle at a venture.
“It comforts me so to talk to you,” she said. “You smooth things out. Worries will come, and jarrings. What shall I do when you are not here to say good words to me?”
“You will say them to yourself,” he answered. “You will hear them in your own heart. Sometimes, indeed, it seems to me as if I merely hear your thoughts and put them into words for you.”
(To be continued.)