The Vagaries of Tod and Peter

by L. Allen Harker

For some reason which she would not define even to herself, Felicia had not asked any of her friends then in town to look up Rodney. She was absolutely certain in her own mind that he had no business there, but circumstances were too strong for her, and she dared not offend Henry. When she read in the paper that Cecil had returned to town she felt distinctly relieved. Here was an understanding person who would ask no questions and could be depended upon to give a faithful account of the child.

Cecil wrote at once to Rodney asking him to lunch at his club on the following Saturday, and to Felicia, to say how pleased he would be to do what he could for him while he was in town.

Rodney sat on the edge of his bed, too tired to undress. His flannels and “sweater” were spread on the pillow, and from time to time the boy laid his face down on them, inhaling the clean, woolly smell. He had of course never worn them since he came to London—Uncle Henry had not thought it necessary to make any arrangement as to how Rodney should spend his Saturdays—yet the sight of them comforted him. He was beginning to employ that saddest of all philosophies, that nothing can take from us the good times we have had. He had eaten hardly anything all day, and the ache in his throat was well nigh intolerable. His door opened, and the maid announced: “A gentleman to see you, sir. Said he’d come up here.”

Cecil had come before his letter. As the open door betrayed the listless little figure with the scattered flannels the whole situation was revealed to him in a flash, and for the hundredth time in a not over well-spent life he cursed the folly which had rendered him so incapable of helping his friends in any material way. When Rodney realized who was his visitor, he simply flung himself bodily upon him, and Cecil Connop, who was tender-hearted and easily touched, kissed him and had been rapturously kissed in return before he had time to consider whether the boy would be offended or not. Then they both sat on the bed and for the first time for six weeks Rodney chattered. One of the boarders, a girl who did typewriting in Chancery Lane, passing his doorway, stopped and smiled as she heard the ripple of Rodney’s laughter; she waited for a full minute, enjoying the unwonted sound, then passed on to her own room unaccountably cheered. People in that house were too busy and too tired to laugh!

When Cecil Connop got back to his rooms he sat and smoked for a long time before he wrote the following letter to Felicia Felcourt:

“To-night I have spent an hour with Rodney, and find him apparently well and cheerful. I cannot faithfully report upon his appearance, as it was candle-light and I did not see him very distinctly. He talked freely enough about you all at home, about his old school, about myself; but, when I come to think of it, said nothing about his business. You will, I know, pardon me if I ask you in all seriousness—is this necessary? The whole time I was with him I had a curious sense that he was playing truant and ought to be at school; and there is one thing that an expression in your letter impels me to say at the risk of being impertinent: no amount of money in the world is such a possession as the breeding you and his dead father have given your boy. Forgive this frankness and believe me that I feel with you the more keenly that I am so conscious of my own gross impotence to help.”

On Saturdays Rodney left business at one, and on this particular Saturday flew back to “Meck” to change into his “Etons,” when he hied him on the top of an omnibus to lunch with Cecil Connop at his club. When he was seated opposite to his host, that gentleman proceeded to examine him critically. The boy was unmistakably a gentleman: everything about him, from the long slender hands of which he was so unconscious, to the way he looked his companion straight in the eyes, proclaimed him to come of a race who had spent their days otherwise than in tying up parcels. Men passing in and out looked pleasantly at the pretty boy who was so plainly enjoying the unwonted experience; but Cecil noted that he was very thin, that after the first flush of greeting was past the little high-bred face was pale, and that there were black shadows under the long-lashed grey eyes. Moreover, although there was everything for lunch calculated to please a boy, he ate hardly anything.

“Are they decent to you at your place of business?” asked Cecil, carefully pouring cognac into his coffee.

“You see,” said Rodney slowly, “I don’t seem to know anybody....” Then, with a twinkle of amusement, “They call me a fool when I make mistakes, which is pretty often, and if I do things right nobody says anything.”

During the next week or two Cecil made a point of seeing Rodney from time to time, and after each meeting he felt more and more convinced that the boy’s health was failing. He did not complain, but the sedentary life was beginning to tell upon a constitution that had never been so tried. He began to stoop, and even with Cecil his laugh was by no means so ready or so frequent as it had been.