Then she rose, and turning to Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir held out her hand.
“Good-bye!” she said. “If you should ever change your mind about Boy, please let me know at once. I shall be glad to have him at any time between now and till he is seven,—after that it would be no use—as all his first impressions will have taken root too deeply in his nature to be eradicated.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed “Muzzy” with a wide smile. “You are really quite a blue-stocking, Letitia! You talk just like a book of philosophy or degeneration—which is it?—I never can remember! I always wonder what people mean when they try to be philosophic and talk about impressions on the mind! Because of course impressions are always coming and going, you know—nothing ever remains long enough to make a lasting effect.”
Miss Letty said no more. It was useless to talk to such a woman about anything but the merest commonplaces. The ins and outs of thought—the strange slight threads of feeling and memory out of which the character of a human being is gradually woven like a web,—the psychic influences, the material surroundings, the thousand-and-one things that help to strengthen or to enervate the brain and heart and spirit, all these potentialities were unknown to the bovine female who waxed fat and apathetic out of pure inertia and sloth. She was, as she was fond of announcing, a ‘mother,’ but her ideas of motherhood consisted merely in feeding Boy on sloppy food which frequently did not agree with him, in dosing him with medicine when he was out of sorts, in dressing him anyhow, and in allowing him to amuse himself as he liked wherever he could, however he could, at all times and in all places dirty or clean. A child of the gutter had the same sort of maternal care. Of order, of time, of refinement, of elegance and sweet cleanliness there was no perception whatever; while the Alpha and Omega of the disordered household was of course “Poo Sing,” who rolled in and rolled out as he chose, more or less disgraceful in appearance and conduct at all hours. However, there was no help for it—Miss Letty had held out a rescue, and it had been refused, and there was nothing more to be done but to leave Boy, for the present at any rate, in his unfortunate surroundings. But there were tears in the eyes of the tender-hearted lady when she returned home alone that day, and missed the little face and the gay prattle that had so greatly cheered her loneliness. And after dinner, when the stately Plimpton handed her her cup of coffee, she was foolish enough to be touched by his solemnly civil presentation to her of a diminutive pair of worn shoes set in orderly fashion on a large silver tray.
“Master Boy left these behind him, my lady,” he said,—he always called Miss Letty ‘my lady’ out of the deep deference existing towards her in his own mind. “They’re his hold ones.” Plimpton was fond of aspirating his h’s,—he thought the trick gave an elegant sound to his language.
“Thank you, Plimpton,” said Miss Leslie, with a faint smile. “I will send them to his mother in the morning.”
But she did not send them to his mother. When she was quite alone, she kissed each little shoe tenderly, and tied them up together in soft silk paper with a band of blue ribbon,—and then, like a fond weak creature, put them under her pillow when she went to bed and cried a little,—then slept and dreamed that her “brave true Harry” was alive and wedded to her, and that Boy was her very own darling, with no other “Muzzy” in the world.
CHAPTER VI
Days went on, months went on, years went on, as they have a habit of doing, till Boy arrived at the mature age of nine. Changes had occurred during this period, which slight in themselves were destined to have their lasting effect upon his character and temperament. To begin with, Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir had been compelled, through the force of circumstances, to leave the house in Hereford Square, and give up living in London altogether. The Honourable Captain’s means had been considerably straitened through his “little ways,” and often and often during occasional flashes of sobriety it would occur to him that Boy was steadily growing, and that what a d——d pity it was that Miss Leslie had not adopted him after all. Once or twice he had broached the subject to his wife, but only to be met by a large placid smile, and the remark—
“Jim, I really am surprised at you! I thought you had more pride. But really you don’t seem to mind the idea of your only son being put in the position of a pauper!”