Whatever my father thought of Mrs. Bundle's freedom of speech, he only said,
"Master Reginald will be quite under your orders for the future, Nurse," and so dismissed her.
And Mrs. Bundle having "said her say," withdrew to say it over again in confidence to the housekeeper.
As for me, if my vanity was stronger than my good taste for a while, the quickness of childish instinct soon convinced me that Miss Burton had no real affection for me. Then I was puzzled by her spasmodic attentions when my father was in the room, and her rough repulses when I "bothered" her at less appropriate moments. I got tired of her, too, of the sound of her voice, of her black hair and unchanging red cheeks. And from the day that I caught her beating Rubens for lying on the edge of her dress, I lived in terror of her. Those rolling black eyes had not a pleasant look when the lady was out of temper. And was she really to be the new mistress of the house? To take the place of my fair, gentle, beautiful mother? That wave of household gossip which for ever surges behind the master's back was always breaking over me now, in expressions of pity for the motherless child of "the dear lady dead and gone."
"I don't like black hair," I announced one day at luncheon; "I like beautiful, shining, golden hair, like poor mamma's."
"Don't talk nonsense, Reginald," said my father, angrily, and shortly afterwards I was dismissed to the nursery.
If I had only had my childish memory to trust to, I do not think that I could have kept so clear a remembrance of my mother as I had. But in my father's dressing-room there hung a water-colour sketch of his young wife, with me—her first baby—on her lap. It was a very happy portrait. The little one was nestled in her arms, and she herself was just looking up with a bright smile of happiness and pride. That look came full at the spectator, and perhaps it was because it was so very lifelike that I had (ever since I could remember) indulged a curious freak of childish sentiment by nodding to the picture and saying, "Good-morning, mamma," whenever I came into the room. Such little superstitions become part of one's life, and I freely confess that I salute that portrait still! I remember, too, that as time went on I lost sight of the fact that it was I who lay on my mother's lap, and always regarded the two as Mamma and Sister Alice—that ever-baby sister whom I had once kissed, and no more. I generally saw them at least once a day, for it was my privilege to play in my father's dressing-room during part of his toilet, and we had a stereotyped joke between us in reference to his shaving, which always ended in my receiving a piece of the creamy lather on the tip of my nose.
But it was one evening when the shadow hanging over the household was deepest upon me, that I slipped unobserved out of the drawing-room where Miss Burton was "performing" on my mother's piano, and crept slowly and sadly upstairs. I went slowly, partly out of my heavy grief, and partly because I carried Rubens in my arms. Had not the lawyer kicked him because he lay upon the pedal? I was resolved that after such an insult he should not so much as have the trouble of walking upstairs. So I carried him, and as I went I condoled with him.
"Did the nasty man kick him? My poor Ru, my darling, dear Ru! The pedal is yours, and not his, and the whole house is yours, and not his nor Miss Burton's; and oh, I wish they would go!"
As I whined, Rubens whined; as I kissed him he licked me, and the result was unfavourable to balance, and I was obliged to sit down on a step. And as I sat I wept, and as I wept that overpowering mother-need came over me, which drives even the little ragamuffin of the gutter to carry his complaints to "mother" for comfort and redress. And I took up Rubens in my arms again, sobbing, and saying, "I shall go to Mamma!" and so weeping and in the darkness we crept into the dressing-room.