CHAPTER XIX.
ORDERED TO BITCHE.
Roy forgot everything except the affair on hand. He dashed upstairs and into the salon at a headlong pace, knocking over a chair as he entered. It fell with a crash, and Roy stopped short. Denham was on the sofa, no one else being present except Lucille, who, with her bonnet on, as if she were going out, had just taken an empty cup from his hand.
“Roy, you unkind boy,” she said, turning with a look of positive anger. “How you can do it!”
“O I’m sorry. I didn’t remember. Isn’t Den better?”
“Not remember! But you ought to remember. So without thought. It is selfishness.”
For Lucille to be seriously displeased with Roy was an event so new in his experience, that Roy gazed with astonished eyes.
“No matter,” interposed Denham. “Had a good time, Roy?”
“I’ve seen lots of people. Den, I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean——”
“No, of course not. It’s all right.”
“Where is my father?” Roy asked in a subdued voice.
“Gone out—but ten minutes since,” said Lucille. “General Cunningham sent to see him on business. And Colonel Baron has to go with him somewhere, and cannot return soon. So dinner is put off till six.”
“And mamma?”
“Mrs. Baron had a call to pay in the same direction. Captain Ivor thought he might get half-an-hour’s sleep. Roy, be good, I entreat. Do not fidget, and knock over chairs, and talk, talk, talk, without ending.”
Roy nodded, and Lucille moved towards the door, adding, as she went, “I also have to see someone, but I shall be back soon.”
Roy sat down in a favourite attitude, facing the back of a chair, and wondering what to do next. Would it be right to tell Denham what had happened? Would it be wrong to put off telling? Curtis had enjoined him to speak at once; but Curtis had not known the posture of affairs. The matter might be of consequence, or it might not. Roy was disquieted, but not seriously uneasy; and he hesitated to worry Denham without cause.
“Seen anybody?” asked Ivor.
“Yes; numbers.”
Then a break.
“Found Curtis?”
“Yes. And Carey too. Would you like to hear all about it?”
“By-and-by, I think. It will keep.”
Silence again, and Roy debated afresh. What if his action should mean bringing Curtis into trouble? That thought had considerable weight.
Three times he formed with his lips the preliminary “I say, Den!” and three times he refrained. The third time some slight sound escaped him, for Denham asked drowsily, “Anything you want?”
“Lucille told me not to talk. Does it matter?”
Ivor did not protest, as Roy had half hoped. He was evidently dropping off, and Roy decided that a short delay was unavoidable. He took up a volume that lay near; and, being no longer a book-hater, he became absorbed in its contents. General Wirion, chips of wood, the Imperial nose, and irate landladies, faded out of his mind. The matter was no doubt a pity, but after all it meant only—so Roy supposed—a pull upon his father’s purse. Boys are apt to look upon parental purses as unlimited in depth.
Denham was sound asleep, and Roy kept as motionless as any girl; not that girls are always quiet. An hour passed; another half-hour; and he began to grow restless. Might it be possible to slip away?
Gruff voices and heavy trampling feet, in the hall below, broke into the stillness, and Denham woke up. “This is lazy work,” he said wearily. “Roy—here yet! What time is it?”
“Nearly five. Dinner isn’t till six. Head any better?”
“Yes. I’m wretched company for you to-day. Different to-morrow, I hope.”
“You can’t help it. You’ve just got to get rested—that’s all. I say, what a noise they are making downstairs. Frenchmen do kick up such a rumpus about everything.”
The door opened hurriedly, and Lucille came in, wearing still her bonnet, as if just returned from a walk.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I do not know what it means, but I must tell. I have no choice. O it surely must be a mistake, it cannot be truly——”
Lucille startled herself no less than her listeners by a sharp sob. She caught Roy’s arm with both hands, holding him fast. “Roy—Roy—what is it that you have done? O what have you done?” she cried.
“Is it that bosh about the cast? O I know. They want to be paid, I suppose. Lucille, Den has been asleep, and I’ve been as quiet as anything—and then for you to come in like this! Den, you just keep still, and I’ll go and speak to them. I’ll settle it all. I know my father will pay.”
“No, no, no—stay—you must not go,” panted Lucille. “Stay—it is the gendarmes! And they come to arrest you—to take you away!”
The word “gendarmes” acted as an electric shock, bringing Denham to his feet in a moment.
“What is it all about? I do not understand.” He touched Roy on the shoulder, with an imperative—“Tell me.”
“It was only—I’d have told you before, only I didn’t like to bother you. It was at Curtis’. There was a bust of Boney on the mantelshelf, and I just shied bits of wood at it, in fun. And I said ‘À bas Napoléon,’ or something of that sort; and then I threw a ball, and the idiotic thing tumbled down and broke into pieces. And the landlady—she’s a regular out-and-out virago—happened that very moment to come in, and she saw and heard. And she vowed she would tell of it. Curtis tried to explain things away, and I offered to pay, but she wouldn’t listen. She went on shrieking at us, and said it was an insult to the Emperor, and Wirion should know of it. She’s a Bonapartist—worse luck! Curtis made me hurry off, and said I was to tell my father at once. But he was out, and you—you know——” with a glance at Lucille, who wrung her hands, while Ivor said,
“Roy, were you utterly mad?”
“I—don’t know. Was it very stupid? Will it matter, do you think? I’m sorry about you—most. I thought they would wait till to-morrow; but I suppose they want me to go and pay directly. Is that it?” looking towards Lucille.
“No, no, no,” she answered, again wringing her hands. “It is to take—to take Roy—to the citadel!”
“To the citadel!” Roy opened his eyes. “O I say, what a farce! For knocking down a wretched little image, not worth fifty sous!”
“For breaking a bust of the Emperor, and for shouting—‘À bas——’” Lucille could not finish.
“You mean—that they will keep him there to-night?” Denham said.
She looked at him with eyes that were almost wild with fear. “Oui—oui—the citadel to-night! And to-morrow—they say—to Bitche.”
“To—Bitche!” whispered Roy. He grew white, for that word was a sound of terror in the ears of English prisoners, and his glance went in appeal to Ivor.
“Stay here, Roy. I will speak to them.”
Ivor crossed the room with his rapid resolute stride, and went out, meeting the gendarmes half-way downstairs. Lucille clutched Roy’s arm again, half in reproach, half in protection. “Ah, my poor boy! mon pauvre garçon! how could you? Ah, such folly! As if there were not already trouble enough! Ah, my unhappy Roy!”
“Shut up, Lucille! You needn’t jaw a fellow like that! It can’t mean anything really, you know. Wirion just thinks he can screw a lot of money out of my father. And that’s the worst of it,” declared Roy, in an undertone. “I hate to have done such a stupid thing—and I hate the worry of it for Den, just now when he’s like this. But you know they couldn’t really send me to Bitche only for smashing a paltry image. It would be ridiculous.”
“Ah, Roy! even you little know—you—what it means to be under a despot, such as—but one may not dare to speak.”
Lucille’s tears came fast. They stood listening. From the staircase rose loud rough voices, alternating with Ivor’s not loud but masterful tones. That he was prisoner, and that they had power to arrest him too, if they chose, made not a grain of difference in his bearing. It was not defiant or excited, but undoubtedly it was haughty; and Lucille, just able to see him from where she stood, found herself wondering—did he wish to go to prison with Roy? She could almost have believed it.
“Eh bien, messieurs. Since l’Empéreur sees fit to war with schoolboys, so be it,” she heard him say sternly in his polished French. “To me, as an Englishman, it appears that his Majesty might find a foe more worthy of his prowess.”
“But, ah, why make them angry?” murmured Lucille.
A few more words, and Denham came back. One look at his face made questions almost needless.
“Then I am to go, Den?”
“I fear—no help for it. The men have authority. You will have to spend to-night in the citadel. But I am coming with you, and I shall insist upon seeing Wirion himself.”
“But you—you cannot! You are ill!” remonstrated Lucille. “Will not Colonel Baron go? Not you.”
He put aside the objection as unimportant.
“Roy must take a few things with him—not more than he can carry himself. I hope it may be only for the one night. They allow us twenty minutes—not longer. That is a concession.”
“I will put his things together for him,” Lucille said quickly.
“One moment. May I beg a kindness?”
“Anything in the world.”
“If Colonel Baron does not return before we start—and he will not—would you, if possible, find him, and beg him to come at once to the citadel? Then, Mrs. Baron——”
Ivor’s set features yielded slightly; for the thought of Roy’s mother without her boy was hard to face. Lucille watched him with grieved eyes.
“I will tell her, but not everything—not yet as to Bitche, for that may be averted. I will stay with her—comfort her—do all that I am able. Is this what you would ask?”
“God bless you!” he said huskily, and she hurried away.
“Den, must I go with those fellows really?” asked Roy, beginning to understand what he had brought upon himself. “I never thought of that. Can’t you manage to get me off? Won’t they let me wait—till my father comes back?”
“They will consent to no delay. He will follow us soon. And, Roy, I must urge you to be careful what you say. Any word that you may let slip without thinking will be used against you. I hoped that you had learnt that lesson.”
A listener, overhearing Denham with the gendarmes, might have questioned whether he had learnt it himself; but Roy was in no condition of mind to be critical. Dismay grew in his face.
“And if you can’t get me off—— If I am sent to Bitche——” with widening gaze.
“If you are”—with much more of an effort than Roy could imagine—“then you will meet it like a man. Whatever comes, you must be brave and true through all. Keep up heart, and remember that it is only for a time. And, my boy, never let yourself say or do what you would be ashamed to tell your father.”
“Or—you”—with a catch of his breath.
“Or me!”—steadily. “Remember always that you are an Englishman—that you are your father’s son—that you are my friend—and that your duty to God comes first. For your mother’s sake, bear patiently. Don’t make matters worse by useless anger. And—think how she will be praying for you!”
Denham could hardly say the words. Roy’s lips quivered.
“Yes, I will! Only, if you could get me off!”
“My dear boy, if they would take me in your stead——”
“Den, I’m so sorry! I’m not frightened, you know—only it’s horrid to have to go! Just when you’ve come and all! And it would have been so jolly! And it’s such a bother for you, too! I do wish I hadn’t done it!”
Ten minutes later the two started—Roy under the gendarme-escort, Ivor keeping pace with them.
Lucille then hastened away on her sorrowful mission, leaving a message with old M. Courant, in case either Colonel or Mrs. Baron should return during her absence—not the same message for Mrs. Baron as for the Colonel.
Half-an-hour’s search brought her into contact with the latter, and she poured forth a breathless tale. Heavier and heavier grew the cloud upon his face. He knew too well the uses that might be made of Roy’s boyish escapade. At the sound of that dread word—“Bitche”—a grey shadow came.
“Captain Ivor went with Roy to the citadel. He ought not—he has been so suffering all day—but he would not let Roy go alone. And he asked, would you follow them as soon as possible? For me, I will find Mrs. Baron, and will stay with her.”
The Colonel muttered words of thanks, and went off at his best speed.
Would he and Captain Ivor be able to do anything? Would they even be admitted to the presence of the autocratic commandant? Denham might talk of insisting; but prisoners had no power to insist. If he did, he might only be thrown into prison himself! Was that what he wanted—to go with the boy?
“Ah, j’espère que non!” Lucille muttered fervently.
And if they were admitted, what then? Would money purchase Roy’s immunity from punishment? General Wirion’s known cupidity gave some ground for hope. Yet, would he neglect such an opportunity for displaying Imperialist zeal?
Lucille put these questions to herself as she flew homeward. On the way she met little Mrs. Curtis, and for one moment stopped in response to the other’s gesture.
“Is it true?” Mrs. Curtis asked, with a scared look. “They tell me Roy has been arrested. Is it so? My husband could do nothing. The landlady was off before he could speak to her again. He thought that Roy and the Colonel would be coming round directly, and so he waited in. But they did not come. And now two gendarmes are quartered in our lodgings, and Hugh may not stir without their leave. It is horrid! But—Roy?”
“I cannot wait! Roy is taken to the citadel! I have to see to his mother! Do not keep me, Madame.” And again Lucille sped homeward.
As she had half hoped, half dreaded, she found Mrs. Baron indoors before herself, alone in the salon, and uneasy at Captain Ivor’s absence.
“He ought not to have gone out,” she said. “He will be seriously ill if he does not let himself rest. It is Roy’s doing, I suppose—so thoughtless of Roy! I must tell Denham that I will not have him spoil my boy in this way. It is not good for Roy, and Denham will suffer for it. You do not know where he is gone?”
“Oui!” faltered Lucille, and Mrs. Baron looked at her.
“You have been crying! What is it?”
As gently as might be, Lucille broke the news of what had happened; and Mrs. Baron seemed stunned. Roy—her Roy—in the hands of the pitiless gendarmes! Roy imprisoned in the citadel! Lucille made no mention of Bitche; but too many prisoners had been passed on thither for the idea not to occur to Mrs. Baron.
“And it was I who brought him to France! It was I who would not let him be sent home when he might have gone! O Roy, Roy!” she moaned. Lucille had hard work to bring any touch of comfort to her.
Hour after hour crept by. Once a messenger arrived with a pencil note from Colonel Baron to his wife—
“Do not sit up if we are late. We are doing what we can. I cannot persuade Denham to go back.”
Not sit up! Neither Mrs. Baron nor Lucille could dream of doing anything else. This suspense drew them together, and Lucille found herself to be one with the Barons in their trouble.
Nine o’clock, ten o’clock, and at length eleven o’clock. Soon after came a sound of footsteps. Not of bounding, boyish steps. No Roy came rushing gaily into the room. Lucille had found fault with him that afternoon for his noisy impulsiveness; but now, from her very heart, she would have welcomed his merry rush. Only Colonel Baron and Ivor entered.
The Colonel’s face was heavily overclouded, while Denham’s features were rigid as iron, and entirely without colour.
“Roy?” whispered Mrs. Baron.
Deep silence answered the unspoken question. Colonel Baron stood with folded arms, gazing at his wife. Denham moved two or three paces away, and rested one arm on the back of a tall chair, as if scarcely able to keep himself upright.
“Roy!” repeated Mrs. Baron, her voice sharpened and thinned. “You have not brought—Roy!”
A single piercing laugh rang out. She stopped the sound abruptly with one quick indrawing of her breath, and waited.
Colonel Baron tried to speak, and no sound came. Denham remained motionless, not even attempting to raise his eyes.
“Oui!” Lucille said restlessly. “Il est—il est——”
The Colonel managed a few short words. There was no possibility of softening what had to be said.
“To-night—the citadel. To-morrow—to Bitche!”
“To Bitche!” echoed Lucille. “Ah-h!”
To Bitche—that terrible fortress-prison, the nightmare of Verdun prisoners! Their Roy to be sent to Bitche! Mrs. Baron swayed slightly as if on the verge of fainting. Roy, her petted and idolised darling—her boy, so tenderly cared for—to be hurried away to Bitche!
Lucille hardly could have told which of the two she was watching with the more intense attention—Mrs. Baron, stunned and wordless, or Denham, with his fixed still face of suffering.
“And nothing—nothing—can be done?” she asked.
“We have tried everything!” the Colonel answered gloomily.[1]
(To be continued.)
[A RAMBLE ABOUT CHILDHOOD.]
By Mrs. MOLESWORTH.
No true child-lover would maintain that all children are equally lovable, or indeed, in some—though, I think, rare instances—lovable at all.
But in this, speaking for myself, I detect no inconsistency, no falsity to one’s colours. For the qualities or deficiencies which make a child unlovable may be summed up in one word; they are such as make it unchildlike. And this, not necessarily, if at all, as regards a child’s mental qualities. It is the moral side of child-nature that attracts—the heart, the spirit. For painful as it is to meet with precocity of mind in some instances, especially the precocity of the kind forced upon the children of the poor not unfrequently, this, unchildlike as it is, is by no means incompatible with great sweetness and beauty of the moral character, great power of affection, delightful candour, even that most exquisite of childlike possessions—trustfulness.
Yes, the root of a child’s nature, the essential groundwork of it, to be lovely and lovable, must be childlike. But a literal meaning must be given to the pretty adjective. I would not even altogether eliminate from it certain qualities which might, strictly speaking, be perhaps more correctly described as childish, seeing that if we limited the word too narrowly, we should lose others of the great charms of children, their queer, delightful inconsistencies and exaggerations, their quaint originality, their grotesque imaginings, all of which, in more or less degree, a real child, even a dull or stupid one, possesses.
Take, for example, the unconscious egoism, almost amounting, logically speaking, to “arrogance,” of most children. The world, nay, the universe, is their own little life and surroundings; their house and family are the rules, the proper thing, all others exceptions. It is not, in most instances, till childhood is growing into a phase of the past, that the sense of comparison is really developed, or that the young creatures take in that other circumstances or conditions besides their own may be what should be, that they themselves do not hold a monopoly of the model existence.
There is something pretty as well as absurd in this—to my mind, at least, in certain directions, something almost sacred, which it would be desecration to touch with hasty or careless fingers; which, one almost grieves to know, must pass, like all illusions, however sweet and innocent, when its day is over.
To recall some recollections of my own childish beliefs—if the egotism may be pardoned, on the ground that one’s own experiences of this nature cannot but be the most trustworthy. I often smile to myself, with the smile “akin to tears,” when I look back to some of the faiths, the first principles, of my earliest years.
Foremost among these was the belief in the absolute perfection of my father and mother. I thought that they could not do wrong, that they knew everything. I remember feeling extremely surprised and perplexed on some occasions when, having involuntarily—for I, like most children, but seldom expressed or alluded to my deepest convictions—allowed this creed of mine to escape me, the subjects of it—though not without a smile—endeavoured tenderly to correct my estimate of them.
“There are many, many things I do not know about, my little girl,” my father would say, adding once, I remember—for this remark impressed me greatly—“I only know enough to begin to see that I am exceedingly ignorant.” And my mother was even more emphatic in her deprecation of our nursery fiat that “mamma was quite, quite good.”
Not that these protestations shook our faith. In my own case I know that the unconscious arrogance with regard to family conditions extended to ludicrous details. I thought that the Christian names of my parents were the only correct ones for papas and mammas; I believed that the order in which we children stood—there were six of us, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl—was the appointed order of nature, that all deviation from these and other particulars of the kind was abnormal and incorrect, and I viewed with condescending pity the playmates whose brothers and sisters were wrongly arranged, or whose parents suffered under “not right” names.
Gradually, of course, these queer, childish “articles of belief” faded—melted away in the clearer vision of experience and developing intellect. But they left a something behind them which I should be sorry to be without; and they left too, I think, a certain faculty of penetration into infant inner life, which circumstances have shown themselves kindly in preserving and deepening. I have learnt to feel since that nearly all children have their own odd and original theories of things, though many forget, as life advances, to remember about their own childhood’s beliefs and imaginings. And this is not unnatural, when we take into account the rarity and difficulty of obtaining a child’s full confidence, for uncommunicated, unexpressed thoughts are apt to die away from want of word-clothing. One really learns more about children from the revelations of grown-up men and women who “remember,” and have cherished their remembrances, than from the children of the moment themselves.
Still, queer ideas crop out to others sometimes. Not often—if it happened oftener we should be less struck by their oddity, by their grotesque originality. A few which, in some instances, not without difficulty and the exertion of some amount of diplomacy, I have succeeded in extracting—no, that is not the right word for a matter of such fairylike delicacy—in drawing out, as the bee draws the honey from the tiny flowers—occur to me as I write, and may be worth mention.
A small boy of my acquaintance, after a fit of extreme penitence for some little offence against his grandmother, whom he was very fond of, added to his “so very sorry,” “never do it again, never, never,” the unintelligible assurance, “I will be always good to you, dear little granny, always; and when you have to go round all the houses, I’ll see that our cook gives you lots and lots of scraps—very nice ones—and nice old boots and shoes, and everything you want. I’ll even”—with a burst of enthusiastic devotion—“I’ll even go round with you my own self.”
Grandmother expressed her sense of the intended good offices, but gingerly, with my assistance, set to work to find out what the little fellow meant—what in the world he had got into his head; and it was no easy task, I can assure you. But at last we succeeded. It appeared that the confusion in the boy’s mind arose from the, in a sense, double meaning of the word “old.” He associated it, naturally enough, with the idea of poverty, material worthlessness, in conjunction with that of age and long-livedness. Every human being, he believed, had to descend, “when you gets very old,” to a state of beggardom; his dear granny, like everybody else, would have to wander from door to door with a piteous tale of want; but from his door she should never be repulsed; nay indeed, he himself would take her by the hand and lead her on the painful round. Nor did he murmur at this strange order of things; to him it was a “has-to-be,” accepted like the darkness that follows the day; like the gradual out-at-toe condition of his own little worn-out shoes; and I greatly doubt if our carefully-worded explanation of his mistake carried real conviction with it. I strongly suspect that he remained on the look-out for granny in her new rôle for a good many months, or even years, to come.
Some other curious childish beliefs recur to my memory. I knew a little girl who cherished as an undoubted article of faith a legend—how originated who can say?—perhaps suggested by some half poetical talk of her elders about the aging year, the year about to bid us farewell and so on, perhaps entirely evolved out of her own fantastic little brain—that on the 31st of December the “old year” took material human form and strolled about the world in the guise of an aged man, though unrecognised by the uninitiated crowd. She had the habit on this day of taking up her quarters in a corner of the deep, old-fashioned window-sill of her nursery, and there, in patient silence, gazing down into the street till Mr. Old-year should have passed by. Nor were her hopes disappointed. She always caught sight of him and nodded her own farewell, unexpectful of any response.
“He couldn’t say good-bye to everybody; he wouldn’t have time,” was her explanation to the little sister to whom she at last confided her odd fancy, and through whose indiscretion it leaked out to the rest of the nursery group.
“But how do you know him?” she was asked. “Is he always dressed the same?”
“Oh, no,” was the reply, “he sometimes wears a black coat and sometimes a brown; and one year he had a blue one with brass buttons. That was the first year I saw him, and I have never missed him since. He has always white hair, and he walks slowly, looking about him. I always know him, almost as well as you’d know Santa Claus if he came along the street, though, of course, he never does. He comes down chimneys, and I don’t think children ever do see him, for they’re always asleep.”
The little woman was, wisely I think, left undisturbed in her innocent fancy. How many more times she ensconced herself in her window on the 31st of December I cannot say. The belief in the poor Old-year’s lonely wandering interested her for the time and did her no harm, then gently faded, to be revived perhaps as a story of “When mother was a little girl,” when mother came to have little girls of her own to beg for her childish reminiscences.
This personification of abstract ideas is a peculiarity, a speciality of children, as it was no doubt of the children of the world’s history—our remote ancestors. And I have noticed that among abstract ideas that of time has a particular fascination for imaginative little people. Many years ago I happened to be staying in a country house when a group of children arrived from town to spend their summer holiday with the uncle and aunt to whom it belonged. Entering the room where these little sisters were quartered, early in the morning after their journey, I was surprised to find the trio wide awake, each sitting up in her cot, in absolute silence as if listening for something.
I too stood silent and still for a minute or two, till yielding to curiosity I turned to the nearest bed, which happened to be that of the youngest, a girl of five or six.
“What is it, Francie?” I inquired. “Are you trying to hear the church bells”—for it was Sunday morning—“or what?”
With perfect seriousness she turned to me as she replied—
“No, auntie dear. We are listening to time passing. We can always hear it when we first come to the country. In London there is too much noise. Meg”—her mature sister of ten—“taught us about it. So we always try to wake early the first morning on purpose to hear it.”
Another friend of mine, now an elderly, if not quite an old, woman, had a curious fancy when a very young child, in connection with which there is a pretty anecdote of the poet Wordsworth, which may make the story worth relating. This little girl believed that during the night before a birthday a miraculous amount of “growing” was done, and on the morning on which her elder brother attained the age of six, she, his junior by two years, flew into the nursery when he was being dressed, expecting to see a marvellous transformation. But—to her immense disappointment—there stood her dear Jack looking precisely as he had done when she bade him good-night the evening before. Maimie’s feelings were too much for her.
“Oh, Jack,” she cried, bursting into tears, “why haven’t you growed big? I thought you’d be kite a big boy this morning.”
Jack and nurse stared at her. I am afraid they called her a silly girl, but however that may have been, her disappointment was vivid enough for the remembrance of it to have lasted through well nigh half a century, and her tears flowed on. Just then came a tap at the door, followed by the entrance of the cook, a north countrywoman and a great favourite with the children. A glance at her showed Maimie that she was weeping, and when their old friend threw her arms around the little people, and kissed them, amidst her sobs Maimie felt certain that the source of her grief was the same as of her own.
“Is you crying ’cos Jack hasn’t growed for his birthday?” asked the little girl. But Hannah shook her head.
“I don’t know what you mean, my sweet one,” said the old woman. “I’m crying because I’ve got to leave you. This very morning I’m going, and I’ve come to say good-bye.”
This startling announcement checked Maimie’s tears, or if they flowed again it was from a different cause.
“Oh, dear Hannah,” the two exclaimed, “why must you go if it makes you so unhappy? Doesn’t mamma want you to stay?”
“Oh, yes, dearie,” was the reply, “but it’s my duty to go to my old mistress. She’s ill now and sad, and she thinks Hannah can nurse her better than anyone else.”
So with tender farewells to the children she was never to see again, poor Hannah went her way.
Her “old mistress” was Miss Dorothy Wordsworth. And though Jack and Maimie never saw the faithful servant any more, they heard from, or rather of, her before long. For only a few weeks had passed when one morning the postman brought a small parcel directed to themselves, and a letter to Jack, Hannah’s particular pet. The letter and the addresses were in a queer, somewhat shaky hand-writing, that of Mr. Wordsworth himself, now an aged man, for it was within a few years of his death; the parcel contained a tempting-looking volume, bound in red and gold—“Selections for the young”—of the laureate’s poems, with Jack’s name inscribed therein, and even more gratifying, from the kindly thoughtfulness it displayed, a little silk neckerchief in tartan—the children’s own tartan, for they belonged to a Scotch clan—for Maimie. And the letter, written to the old servant’s dictation, for she could not write herself, told of her consultation with her master as to the most appropriate presents to choose for her little favourites.
Almost more touching than the trustfulness of children is their extraordinary endurance—a quality often, I fear, carried to a painful and even dangerous point. It has its root, I suspect, in their innate trust, their belief that whatever their elders deem right must be so; also perhaps, in a certain almost fatalistic acceptance of things as they are. But on few subjects connected with childhood have I felt more strongly than on this. No parent is justified in “taking for granted” the moral qualifications, even the suitability of the persons in charge of their little boys and girls, however unexceptionable may be the references and recommendations they bring. It takes tact and gives trouble, but it is among the first of the duties of mothers especially to make sure on such points for themselves. For besides their trust in their elders and their natural resignation to the conditions about them, there is an extreme sense of loyalty in most children, a horror of “tell-taling,” such as are often far too slightly appreciated or taken into account.
As these remarks are professedly a “ramble” I may be forgiven for reverting to that beautiful trustfulness, by relating an incident which, though trivial in the extreme, has never faded from my memory. We were returning, late at night, or so at least it seemed to me, from some kind of juvenile entertainment at Christmas time. It was a stormy evening; I was a very little girl, and since infancy, high wind has always frightened me, and that night it was blowing fiercely. I was already trembling, when the carriage suddenly stopped. My father at once sprang out, for there was no second man on the box; there was nothing wrong, only the coachman’s hat had blown off! He got down and ran back for it, and my father replaced him and drove on slowly, for the wind had made the horse restless.
“Oh, mamma,” I exclaimed, “I am so frightened. The coachman has gone away.”
“Yes, darling,” said my mother, “but don’t you see papa is driving?”
I shall never forget the impression of absolute comfort and fearlessness that came over me at her words.
“Papa is driving,” I repeated to myself. “We are quite, quite safe.”
And all through the many years since that winter night, the impression has never faded; often and often it has returned to me as a suggestion of the essential beauty of trust, the germ of the “perfect love” towards which we strive.
Not a propos of the foregoing reminiscences, yet not, I hope, mal a propos in a roundabout paper, two anecdotes of a different kind, of children, recur to me, showing the odd directions that their cogitations sometimes take.
A little boy of my acquaintance, partly perhaps from nervousness, was subject to violent fits of crying, most irritating and perplexing to deal with. Once started—often by some absurdly trivial cause—there was literally no saying when Charley would leave off. One day, after an unusually long and exhausting attack, to his mother’s great relief, the floods gave signs of abating; she left the room to fetch him a glass of water. On her return the sobs had subsided.
“Oh, Charley,” she said, with natural but ill-advised expression of her feelings, “you have really worn me out. If ever you have children of your own, who cry like you, I hope you will remember your poor mother.”
Forthwith, to her dismay, the wails and tears burst out again, and it was not till some time had elapsed that the child would listen to her repeated inquiries as to what in the world he was crying for now. At last came the little looked-for reply.
“It wasn’t because of this morning,” (what had started the fit I do not remember) “I’d left off crying about that. It was you thinking I would bring up my children so badly.”
Anecdote No. 2 relates to a more exalted personage than Master Charley.
Several years ago I was gratified by hearing from a friend then resident in Italy and acquainted with the Court circle, that one of my earliest books for children, Carrots, had found great favour in the eyes of the young Crown Prince, then a mere boy. His exact sentiments on the subject were conveyed to me in a letter written at his request. The story had amused and interested him at a moment when he was specially in want of entertainment, for it was just at the date of the death of his grandfather, the great Victor Emanuel, and his little namesake had not been allowed to go out riding or driving as usual for several days. He did not know how he would have passed the time but for Carrots, he said. He wished Mrs. Molesworth to know this, and he also wished to make a request to her. Would she write another book as soon as possible—(not, as one might have expected, of further details of my little hero’s boyhood, but)—to tell how “Carrots” brought up his own children when he became a big man and was married!
[ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.]
By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters Three,” etc.