Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, who had just settled herself comfortably in an arm-chair to hear him read aloud a short summary, prepared by herself, of some of the baldest and prosiest facts of our glorious English history, gazed at him with a bland smile.
“Don’t be silly, Boy!”
“I’m not silly,” he answered, with a touch of irritation. “I want to know what I really am—I mean, what is the good of me?”
“What is the good of you?” echoed “Muzzy,” nodding her large head abstractedly. “Are you not my son?”
“Yes, but I might have been anybody’s son, you see,” said Boy. “That isn’t it at all. I should like to know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“Of course you would,” replied his mother with comfortable composure. “Very natural, and very proper. But we can’t decide that just now. When you are older perhaps you shall go into the Navy.”
Boy’s face flushed, and his delicate brows contracted. His mother did not understand him. But he had found out that it was no use arguing with her.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, and turned at once to his lessons in resigned patience.
It was strange, he thought, but inevitable, that no one could be found to tell him exactly what he wished most to learn. About God, for instance,—who was that Personage really? He was afraid to ask. He had been told that God had made him, and the world, and everything that was in the world, and he was accustomed to say a little form of prayer to this same God every night at bedtime, and every morning on rising—the servant Gerty at Hereford Square had taught him to do so, and his “Muzzy” had blandly approved of Gerty’s religious zeal. But he had no real conception as to Whom he was addressing himself. The sweet old story—the grand story of the selfless Christ, had been told him in a sort of vague and inconsequent manner, but he had not understood it a bit. One of his petitions to Heaven, invented by Gerty, ran thus,—“Dear Jesus, bless father, bless mother, make me a good boy, and save my soul for Heaven, Amen!” But he had no sort of idea what his “soul” was, or why it should be so carefully “saved for Heaven.” What was the good of his soul? And what was Heaven? Often he thought he would ask Rattling Jack,—but he hesitated to do so lest that venerable cynic should empty vials of wrath on his defenceless head for being in such a state of ignorance. And so the days went on, and he was fast becoming used to the companionship of the boy-scavengers on the beach, and the conversation of Rattling Jack, when a sudden and glorious break occurred in the clouds of his dull sky. Major Desmond came down from London unexpectedly to see his father and mother, and to ask that he might be allowed to go to Scotland and stay a whole month with Miss Leslie, at a beautiful place she had taken there for the summer on the fairy shores of Loch Katrine. He was amusing himself by the sea as usual, putting helpless baby-crabs into a glass bottle, when his mother’s maid-of-all-work came hurrying down to find him, and seizing him suddenly by the arm, upset the whole crab family all over the sand. But Boy made no remark of either anger or sorrow as he saw his crawling collection scattered in all directions,—they were not the only crabs, he reflected philosophically—there were a good many more in the sea. And when he heard that Major Desmond was waiting to see him, he was very glad, though as a matter of fact he was not quite sure who Major Desmond was, except that he was associated in his mind with an old magic lantern which had fallen out of repair, and was shut up in a cupboard with the worn-out boots of the household. He ran, however, as fast as his little wiry legs would carry him, moved by curiosity and an eagerness that he could not well explain, but made conscious, by the outcoming aura of pleasurable sensations, that something agreeable was about to happen. He forgot that he was dirty and untidy,—he did not know that he looked neglected—so that he was utterly unaware of the reasons which caused the well-dressed, handsome, burly old gentleman, with the white moustache, to recoil a step or two at sight of him, and exclaim, “Oh Lord!” accompanying the ejaculation with a low whistle. Major Desmond?—of course he remembered him now!—he was the friend of that far-off vision of his childhood, “Kiss-Letty.” And rising memories began to send the colour to his face, and the sparkle to his eyes, and the tremulous curve to his lips, as he held out his grimy little hand and said somewhat nervously,—
“How do you do, Major? Has Miss Letty come too?”