He sighed,—and refused to ‘look here and see, the Bumble-bee.’ He really wished to know who it was that had asked for a bat to kill a rat, and why that unknown individual had been so furiously inclined. But he kept these desires to himself; for he had an instinctive sense that though Gerty was all kindness, she was not quite the person to be trusted with his closest confidences.
Just now he went into a corner, picture-book in hand, and sat, watching his ‘Muzzy’ and ‘Kiss-Letty’ taking tea together. Muzzy’s back was towards him, and he could not help wondering why it was so big and broad? Why it was so difficult to get round Muzzy for example? He had no such trouble with Kiss-Letty. She was so slim and yet so strong,—and once, when she had lifted him up and carried him from one room to the other, he felt as though he were ‘throned light in air,’ so easy and graceful had been the way she bore him. Now Muzzy always took hold of him as if he were a lump. Not that he argued this fact at all in his little mind,—he was simply thinking—thinking,—yes, if the sober truth must be told, he was thinking quite sadly and seriously how it happened that Muzzy was ugly and Kiss-Letty pretty! It was such a pity Muzzy was ugly!—for surely it was ugly to have red blotches on the face, and hair like the arm-chair stuffing? Such a pity—such a pity for Muzzy? Such a pity too for Boy! Ah, and such a pity it is for all idle, slovenly women who “let themselves go” and think their children ‘take no notice’ of indolence, dirt, and discordant colours. The sense of beauty and fitness was very strong in Boy. Where he got it was a mystery,—it was certainly not a heritage derived from either of his parents. He did not know that ‘Kiss-Letty’ was many years older than ‘Muzzy,’—but he did know that she was ever so much more charming and agreeable to look at. He judged by appearances,—and these were all in ‘Kiss-Letty’s’ favour. For in truth the elderly spinster looked a whole decade younger than the more youthful married woman. Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, though she took life with such provokingly indifferent ease, ‘wore’ badly,—Miss Leslie, despite many concealed sorrows and disappointments, wore well. Her face was still rounded and soft-complexioned,—her eyes were bright and clear,—while her figure was graceful and her dress choice and elegant. Boy indeed thought ‘Kiss-Letty’ very beautiful, and he was not without experience. Several well-known “society beauties” of the classed and labelled sort, who are hawked about in newspaper ‘fashionable’ columns as wearing blue or green, or “looking lovely in white,” and “stately in pink”—were wont to visit Captain the Honourable and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir on their ‘at-home’ days, and Boy was always taken into the drawing-room to see them,—but somehow they made no impression on him. They lacked something—though he could not tell what that something was. None of them had the smile of Kiss-Letty, or her soft dove-like glance of eye. Peering at her now from his present corner Boy considered her a very angel of loveliness. And he was actually going away with her, to her ‘grand big house,’ Muzzy said. Boy tried to think what the ‘grand big house’ would be like. The nearest approach his imagination could make to it was Aladdin’s palace, as pictured in one of the ‘fairy landscapes’ of a certain magic lantern which a very burly gentleman, a Major Desmond, had brought to him at Christmas. Major Desmond was a large, jovial, white-haired, white-moustached personage, with a rollicking mellow laugh, and an immense hand which, whenever it was laid on Boy’s head, caressed his curls with the gentleness of a south wind touching the petals of a flower. Muzzy’s hand was hard and heavy indeed compared to the hand of Major Desmond. Major Desmond was a friend of Kiss-Letty’s,—that was all Boy knew about him,—that and the magic-lantern incident. Ruffling and crinkling up the pages of the too-familiar ‘picture book’ mechanically, Boy went on with his own little quaint sequence of thought,—till suddenly, just as Muzzy and Kiss-Letty had finished their tea, a dull crash was heard in the opposite room, accompanied by a loud oath—then came silence. Boy trotted out of his corner, his little face pale with fright.
“Oh Poo’ Sing!” he cried. “Dads ill!—Dads hurted! Me go to Dads!”
“No—no!” and Miss Letty hastened to him and caught him in her arms—“No, dear! Wait a minute! Wait, darling! Let Mother see first what is the matter.”
Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had risen, and was about to open the door and make some casual inquiry, when Gerty came in, somewhat pale but giggling.
“It’s only master, ’m,” she said. “His foot tripped, and down he fell. He ain’t hurt hisself. He don’t even trouble to get up—he’s just a-sittin’ on the floor with the whisky-bottle as comfoble as you please!”
Miss Letty shuddered as she listened, and clasped Boy more warmly to her heart, placing her gentle hands against his ears lest he should hear too much.
“Papa’s all right, Boy dear,” she said.—“He has just let something fall on the floor. See?”
“Zat all?” queried Boy with an anxious look.
“That’s all. Now”—and Miss Letitia took his dumpy wee hand in her own and led him across the room—“come along, and we’ll have a nice drive together, shall we? Gerty, have you got Master Boy’s things?”