The Head of the House of Coombe

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

If, when Andrews had taken her into the Gardens, she had played with other children, Robin would no doubt have learned something of the existence and normal attitude of mothers through the mere accident of childish chatter, but it somehow happened that she never formed relations with the charges of other nurses. She took it for granted for some time that this was because Andrews had laid down some mysterious law. Andrews did not seem to form acquaintances herself. Sometimes she sat on a bench and talked a little to another nurse, but she seldom sat twice with the same person. It was indeed generally her custom to sit alone, crocheting or sewing, with a rather lofty and exclusive air and to call Robin back to her side if she saw her slowly edging towards some other child.

“My rule is to keep myself to myself,” she said in the kitchen. “And to look as if I was the one that would turn up noses, if noses was to be turned up. There’s those that would snatch away their children if I let Robin begin to make up to them. Some wouldn’t, of course, but I’m not going to run risks. I’m going to save my own pride.”

But one morning when Robin was watching her sparrows, a nurse, who was an old acquaintance, surprised Andrews by appearing in the Gardens with two little girls in her charge. They were children of nine and eleven and quite sufficient for themselves, apart from the fact that they regarded Robin as a baby and, therefore, took no notice of her. They began playing with skipping ropes, which left their nurse free to engage in delighted conversation with Andrews.

It was conversation so delightful that Robin was forgotten, even to the extent of being allowed to follow her sparrows round a clump of shrubbery and, therefore, out of Andrews’ sight, though she was only a few yards away. The sparrows this morning were quarrelsome and suddenly engaged in a fight, pecking each other furiously, beating their wings and uttering shrill, protesting chipperings. Robin did not quite understand what they were doing and stood watching them with spellbound interest.

It was while she watched them that she heard footsteps on the gravel walk which stopped near her and made her look up to see who was at her side. A big boy in Highland kilts and bonnet and sporan was standing by her, and she found herself staring into a pair of handsome deep blue eyes, blue like the waters of a hillside tarn. They were wide, glowing, friendly eyes and none like them had ever looked into hers before. He seemed to her to be a very big boy indeed, and in fact, he was unusually tall and broad for his age, but he was only eight years old and a simple enough child pagan. Robin’s heart began to beat as it did when she watched the Lady Downstairs, but there was something different in the beating. It was something which made her red mouth spread and curve itself into a smile which showed all her small teeth.

So they stood and stared at each other and for some strange, strange reason—created, perhaps, with the creating of Man and still hidden among the deep secrets of the Universe—they were drawn to each other—wanted each other—knew each other. Their advances were, of course, of the most primitive—as primitive and as much a matter of instinct as the nosing and sniffing of young animals. He spread and curved his red mouth and showed the healthy whiteness of his own handsome teeth as she had shown her smaller ones. Then he began to run and prance round in a circle, capering like a Shetland pony to exhibit at once his friendliness and his prowess. He tossed his curled head and laughed to make her laugh also, and she not only laughed but clapped her hands. He was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before in her life, and he was plainly trying to please her. No child creature had ever done anything like it before, because no child creature had ever been allowed by Andrews to make friends with her. He, on his part, was only doing what any other little boy animal would have done—expressing his child masculinity by “showing off” before a little female. But to this little female it had never happened before.

It was all beautifully elemental. As does not too often happen, two souls as well as two bodies were drawn towards each other by the Magnet of Being. When he had exhibited himself for a minute or two he came back to her, breathing fast and glowing.

“My pony in Scotland does that. His name is Chieftain. He is a Shetland pony and he is only that high,” he measured forty inches from the ground. “I’m called Donal. What are you called?”

“Robin,” she answered, her lips and voice trembling with joy. He was so beautiful. His hair was bright and curly. His broad forehead was clear white where he had pushed back his bonnet with the eagle feather standing upright on it. His strong legs and knees were white between his tartan kilt and his rolled back stockings. The clasps which held his feather and the plaid over his shoulder were set with fine stones in rich silver. She did not know that he was perfectly equipped as a little Highland chieftain, the head of his clan, should be.

They began to play together, and the unknown Fates, which do their work as they choose, so wrought on this occasion as to cause Andrews’ friend to set forth upon a journey through a story so exciting in its nature that its hearer was held spellbound and oblivious to her surroundings themselves. Once, it is true, she rose as in a dream and walked round the group of shrubs, but the Fates had arranged for that moment also. Robin was alone and was busily playing with some leaves she had plucked and laid on the seat of a bench for some mysterious reason. She looked good for an hour’s safe occupation, and Andrews returned to her friend’s detailed and intimate version of a great country house scandal, of which the papers were full because it had ended in the divorce court.