"Then seemed to me this world far less in size,Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;Like points in heaven I saw the stars arise,And longed for wings that I might catch a star."
"Then seemed to me this world far less in size,Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;Like points in heaven I saw the stars arise,And longed for wings that I might catch a star."
Least said, soonest mended! Tommy is on his feet again in no time, and has picked up Mabel before you could say Jack Robinson, and once again, nothing daunted by their ignominious entry, they rush up the room and precipitate themselves upon their mother. This pious act being performed, Tommy sees fit to show some small attention to the other people present.
"Thomas," says Mr. Browne, when he has shaken hands with him, "if you wait much longer without declaring yourself you will infallibly burst, and that is always a rude thing to do in a friend's drawing-room. Speak, Thomas, or die—you are evidently full of information!"
"Well, I won't tell you!" says Tommy, naturally indignant at this address. He throws a resentful look at him over his shoulder while making his way to his grandfather. There is a queer sort of sympathy—understanding—what you will—between the child and the stern old man.
"Come here," says Sir George, drawing Tommy to him. "Well, and did you enjoy yourself? Was it all your fancy painted it?"
Sir George has sunk into a chair with all the heaviness of an old man, and the boy has crept between his knees and is looking up at him with his beautiful little face all aglow.
"Oh! 'twas lovely!" says he. "'Twas splendid! There was lights all over the house. 'Twas like night—only 'twasn't night, and that was grand! And there were heaps of people. A whole town was there. And there were——Grandpa! why did they have lamps there when it was daytime?"
"Because they have no windows in a theatre," says Sir George, patting the little hot, fat hand that is lying on his arm, with a strange sensation of pleasure in the touch of it.
"No windows?" with big eyes opened wide.
"Not one."
"Then why have we windows?" asks Tommy, with an involuntary glance round him. "Why are there windows anywhere? It's ever so much nicer without them. Why can't we have lamps always, like the theatre people?"
"Why, indeed?" says Mr. Browne, sympathetically. "Sir George, I hope you will take your grandson's advice to heart, and block up all these absurd windows, and let a proper ray of light descend upon us from the honest burner. Who cares for strikes? Not I!"
"Well, Tommy, we'll think about it," says Sir George. "And now go on. You saw——"
"Bluebeard!" says Tommy, almost roaring in the excitement of his delight. "A big Bluebeard, and he was just like the pictures of him at home, with his toes curled up and a red towel round his head and a blue night-gown and a smiter in his hand."
"A cimeter, Tommy?" suggests his mother, gently.
"Eh?" says Tommy. "Well, it's all the same," says he, after a pause, replete with deep research and with a truly noble impartiality.
"It is, indeed!" says Mr. Browne, open encouragement in his eye. "And so you saw Mr. Bluebeard! And did he see you?"
"Oh! he saw me!" cries Mabel, in a little whimpering' tone. "He looked straight into the little house where we were, and I saw his eye—his horrid eye!" shaking her small head vigorously—"and it ran right into mine, and he began to walk up to me, and I——"
She stops, her pretty red lips quivering, her blue eyes full of tears.
"Oh, Mabel was so frightened!" says Tommy, the Bold. "She stuck her nose into nurse's fur cape and roared!"
"I didn't!" says Mabel promptly.
"You did!" says Tommy, indignant at being contradicted, "and she said it would never be worth a farthing ever after, and——Well, any way, you know, Mabel, you didn't like the heads."
"Oh, no; I didn't—I hated them! They were all hanging to one side; and there was nasty blood, and they looked as if they was going to waggle," concludes Mabel, with a terrified sob, burying her own head in her mother's lap.
"Oh! she is too young," says Barbara, nervously clasping her little woman close to her in a quiet, undemonstrative way, but so as to make the child herself feel the protection of her arms.
"Too young for so dismal a sight," says Dysart, stooping over and patting Mabel's sunny curls with a kindly touch. He is very fond of children, as are all men, good and bad.
"I should not have let her go," says Mrs. Monkton, with self-reproach. "Such exhibitions are painful for young minds, however harmless."
"When she is older——" begins Dysart, still caressing the little head.
"Yes, yes—she is too young—far too young," says Mrs. Monkton, giving the child a second imperceptible hug.
"One is never too young to learn the miseries of the world," says Miss L'Estrange, in her most terrible tone. "Why should a child be pampered and petted, and shielded from all thoughts of harm and wrong, as though they never existed? It is false treatment. It is a wilful deceiving of the growing mind. One day they must wake to all the horrors of the world. They should therefore be prepared for it, steadily, sternly, unyieldingly!"
"What a grand—what a strong nature!" says Mr. Browne, uplifting his hands in admiration. "You would, then, advocate the cause of the pantomime?" says he, knowing well that the very name of theatre stinks in the nostrils of Miss L'Estrange.
"Far be it from me!" says she, with a violent shake of her head. "May all such disreputable performances come to a bad end, and a speedy one, is my devout prayer. But," with a vicious glance at Barbara, "I would condemn the parents who would bring their children up in a dark ignorance of the woes and vices of the world in which they must pass their lives. I think, as Mabel has been permitted to look at the pernicious exhibition of this afternoon, she should also be encouraged to look with calmness upon it, if only to teach her what to expect from life."
"Good heavens!" says Mr. Browne, in a voice of horror. "Is that what she has to expect? Rows of decapitated heads! Have you had private information, Miss L'Estrange? Is a rehearsal of the French Revolution to be performed in London? Do you really believe the poor child is doomed to behold your head carried past the windows on a pike? Was there meaning in the artless prattle of our Thomas just now when he condemned windows as a social nuisance, or——"
"I suppose you think you are amusing!" interrupts the spinster, malignantly. It is plain that she objects to the idea of her head being on a pike. "At all events, if you must jest on serious subjects, I desire you, Richard, to leave me out of your silly maunderings."
"Your will is my law," says Dicky, rising. "I leave you!"
He makes a tragic, retreat, and finding an empty chair near Monkton takes possession of it.
"I must protest against your opinion," says Dysart, addressing Miss L'Estrange with a smile. "Children should be regarded as something better than mere lumps of clay to be experimentalized upon!"
"Oh, yes," says Barbara, regarding the spinster gently but with ill-concealed aversion. "You cannot expect any one to agree with you there. I, for one, could not."
"I don't know that I ever asked you to," says Miss L'Estrange with such open impertinence that Barbara flushes up to the roots of her hair.
Silence falls on the room, except for a light conversation being carried on between Dicky and Monkton, both of whom have heard nothing. Lady Monkton looks uncomfortable. Sir George hastens to the rescue.
"Surely you haven't told us everything, Tommy?" says he giving his grandson a pull toward him. "Besides Mr. Bluebeard, what else was there?"
"Lots of things," says Tommy, vaguely, coming back from an eager attention to Miss L'Estrange's evil suggestion to a fresh remembrance of his past delights. "There was a band and it shouted. Nurse said it took the roof off her head, but I looked, and her bonnet didn't stir. And there was the harlequin, he was beautiful. He shined like anything. He was all over scales, like a trout."
"A queer fish," says his grandfather.
"He jumped about and beat things with a little stick he had. And he danced, and there was a window and he sprang right through it, and he came up again and wasn't a bit hurt, not a bit. Oh! he was lovely, grandpapa, and so was his concubine——"
"His what?" says Sir George.
"His concubine. His sweetheart. That was her name," says Tommy confidently.
There is a ghastly silence. Lady Monkton's pale old cheeks color faintly. Miss L'Estrange glares. As for Barbara, she feels the world has at last come to an end. They will be angry with the boy. Her mission to London will have failed—that vague hope of a reconciliation through the children that she had yet scarcely allowed to herself.
Need it be said that Mr. Browne has succumbed to secret but disgraceful mirth. A good three-quarters of a full-sized handkerchief is already in his mouth—a little more of the cambric and "death through suffocation" will adorn the columns of theTimesin the morning. Sir George, too, what is the matter with him? He is speechless—from indignation one must hope.
"What ails you, grandpa?" demands Tommy, after a full minute's strict examination of him.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," says Sir George, choking; "it is only—that I'm glad you have so thoroughly enjoyed yourself and your harlequin, and—ha, ha, ha, your Columbine. Columbine, now mind. And here's this for you, Tommy, because you are such a good boy."
He opens the little grandson's hand and presses into the pink palm of it a sovereign.
"Thank you," says Tommy, in the polite regulation tone he has been taught, without a glance at his gift—a touch of etiquette he has been taught, too. Then the curious eyes of childhood wander to the palm, and, seeing the unexpected pretty gold thing lying there, he colors up to the tips of his ears with surprise and pleasure. Then sudden compunction seizes on the kindly little heart. The world is strange to him. He knows but one or two here and there. His father is poor. A sovereign—that is, a gold piece—would be rare with him, why not rare with another? Though filled with admiration and gratitude for the giver of so big a gift, the child's heart commands him not to accept it.
"Oh, it is too much," says he, throwing his arms round Sir George's neck and trying to press the sovereign back into his hand. "A shilling I'd like, but that's such a lot of shillings, and maybe you'd be wanting it." This is all whispered in the softest, tenderest way.
"No, no, my boy," says Sir George, whispering back, and glad that he must whisper. His voice, even so, sounds a little queer to himself. How often he might have gladdened this child with a present, a small one, and until now——"Keep it," says he; he has passed his hand round the little head and is pressing it against his breast.
"May I? Really?" says Tommy, emancipating his head with a little jerk, and looking at Sir George with searching eyes.
"You may indeed!"
"God bless you!" says Tommy, solemnly.
It is a startling remark to Sir George, but not so to Tommy. It is exactly what nurse had said to her daughter the day before she left Ireland with Tommy and Mabel in charge, when her daughter had brought her the half of her wages. Therefore it must be correct. To supplement this blessing Tommy flings his arms around Sir George's neck and gives him a resounding kiss. Nurse had done that, too, to her daughter.
"God bless you too, my dear," says Sir George, if not quite as solemnly, with considerably more tenderness. Tommy's mother, catching the words and the tone, cheers up. All is not lost yet! The situation is saved. Tommy has won the day. The inconsequent Tommy of all people! Insult to herself she had endured, but to have the children disliked would have been more than she could bear; bur Tommy, apparently, is not disliked—by the old man at all events. That fact will be sweet to Freddy. After all, who could resist Tommy? Tears rise to the mother's eyes. Darling boy! Where is his like upon the whole wide earth? Nowhere.
She is disturbed in her reverie by the fact that the originator of it is running toward her with one little closed fist outstretched. How he runs! His fat calves come twinkling across the carpet.
"See, mammy, what I've got. Grandpa gave it to me. Isn't he nice? Now I'll buy a watch like pappy's."
"You have made him very happy," says Barbara, smiling at Sir George over her boy's head. She rises as she speaks, and goes to where Lady Monkton is sitting to bid her good-bye.
"I hope you will come soon again," says Lady Monkton, not cordially, but as if compelled to it; "and I hope, too," pausing as if to gather herself together, "that when you do come you will bring your sister with you. It will give me—us—pleasure to see her." There is such a dearth of pleasure in the tone of the invitation that Barbara feels her wrath rising within her.
"I thank you," she manages to say very calmly, not committing herself, either way, and presently finds herself in the street with her husband and her children. They had declined Lady Monkton's offer of the brougham to take them home.
"It was a bad time," says Monkton while waiting at a crossing for a cab to come to them. "But you must try and not mind them. If the fact that I am always with you counts for anything, it may help you to endure it."
"What help could be like it?" says she, tightening her hand on his arm.
"That old woman, my aunt. She offended you, but you must remember that she offends everybody. You thought her abominable?"
"Oh no. I only thought her vulgar," says Mrs. Monkton. It is the one revenge she permits herself. Monkton breaks into an irresistible laugh.
"It isn't perfect; it couldn't be unless she heard you," says he. The cab has come up now, and he puts in the children and then his wife, finally himself.
"Tommy crowns all!" says he with a retrospective smile.
"Eh?" says Tommy, who has the ears of a Midas.
"Your father says you are a social success, and so does your mother," says Barbara, smiling at the child's puzzled face, and then giving him a loving little embrace.
"Why should two hearts in one breast lieAnd yet not lodge together?Oh, love! where is thy sympathyIf thus our breasts you sever?"
"Why should two hearts in one breast lieAnd yet not lodge together?Oh, love! where is thy sympathyIf thus our breasts you sever?"
"Well, did you like the gallery?" asks Mrs. Monkton, throwing aside her book to greet Joyce as she returns from Doré's. It is next day, and Barbara had let the girl go to see the pictures without telling her of her meeting with Felix the evening before; she had been afraid to say anything about him lest that guilty secret of hers might transpire—that deliberate betrayal of Joyce's intended visit to Bond street on the morrow. If Joyce had heard that, she would, in all probability, have deferred her going there for ever—and—it was such a chance. Mrs. Monkton, who, in her time, had said so many hard words about match makers, as most women have, and who would have scorned to be classed with them, had promoted and desired this meeting of Felix and Joyce with all the energy and enthusiasm of which she was capable But that Joyce should suspect her of the truth is a fear that terrifies her.
"Very much. So did Tommy. He is very graphic in his remarks," says Joyce, sinking listlessly into a chair, and taking off her hat. She looks vexed and preoccupied. "I think he gave several very original ideas on the subjects of the pictures to those around. They seemed impressed. You know how far above the foolish feeling,mauvaise honte, he is; his voice 'like a silver clarion rung.' Excelsior was outdone. Everybody turned and looked at him with——"
"I hope he wasn't noisy," says Mrs. Monkton, nervously.
"With admiration, I was going to say, but you wouldn't let me finish my sentence. Oh, yes, he was quite a success. One old gentleman wanted to know if he would accept the part of art critic on his paper. It was very exciting." She leans back in her chair, the troubled look on her face growing intensified. She seems glad to be silent, and with downcast eyes plays with the gloves lying in her lap.
"Something has happened, Joyce," says her sister, going over to her.
"Something is happening always," returned Joyce, with a rather impatient smile.
"Yes, but to you just now."
"You are sure to make me tell you sooner or later," says Miss Kavanagh, "and even if I didn't, Tommy would. I met Mr. Dysart at that gallery to-day."
"Felix?" says Mrs. Monkton, feeling herself an abominable hypocrite; yet afraid to confess the truth. Something in the girl's whole attitude forbids a confession, at this moment at all events.
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Well?"
"He was glad to see you, darling?" very tenderly.
"Was he? I don't know. He looked very ill. He said he had had a bad cough. He is coming to see you."
"You were kind to him, Joyce?"
"I didn't personally insult him, if you mean that."
"Oh, no, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. He was ill, unhappy; you did not make him more unhappy?"
"It is always for him!" cries the girl, with jealous anger. "Is there never to be a thought for me? Am I nothing to you? Am I never unhappy? Why don't you ask if he was kind to me?"
"Was he ever unkind?"
"Well, you can forget! He said dreadful things to me—dreadful. I am not likely to forget them if you are. After all, they did not hurt you."
"Joyce!"
"Yes, I know—I know everything you would say. I am ungrateful, abominable, but——He was unkind to me! He said what no girl would ever forgive, and yet you have not one angry word for him."
"Never mind all that," says Mrs. Monkton, soothingly. "Tell me what you did to-day—what you said."
"As little as possible," defiantly. "I tell you I don't want ever to see him again, or hear of him; I think I hate him. And he looked dying." She stops here, as if finding a difficulty about saying another word. She coughs nervously; then, recovering herself, and as if determined to assert herself anew and show how real is the coldness that she has declared—"Yes, dying, I think," she says, stubbornly.
"Oh, I don't think he looked as bad as that!" says Barbara, hastily, unthinkingly filled with grief, not only at this summary dismissal of poor Felix from our earthly sphere, but for her sister's unhappiness, which is as plain to her as though no little comedy had been performed for the concealment of it.
"You don't!" repeats Joyce, lifting her head and directing a piercing glance at her. "You! What do you know about him?"
"Why—you just said——" stammers Mrs. Monkton, and then breaks down ignominiously.
"You knew he was in town," says Joyce, advancing to her, and looking down on her with clasped-hands and a pale face. "Barbara, speak. You knew he was here, and never told me; you," with a sudden, fresh burst of inspiration, "sent him to that place to-day to meet me."
"Oh, no, dearest. No, indeed. He himself can tell you. It was only that he——"
"Asked where I was going to, at such and such an hour, and you told him." She is still standing over poor Mrs. Monkton in an attitude that might almost be termed menacing.
"I didn't. I assure you, Joyce, you are taking it all quite wrongly. It was only——"
"Oh! only—only," says the girl, contemptuously. "Do you think I can't read between the lines? I am sure you believe you are sticking to the honest truth, Barbara, but still——Well," bitterly, "I don't think he profited much by the information you gave him. Your deception has given him small satisfaction."
"I don't think you should speak to me like that," says Mrs. Monkton, in a voice that trembles perceptibly.
"I don't care what I say," cries Joyce, with a sudden burst of passion. "You betray me; he betrays me; all the world seem arrayed against me. And what have I done to anybody?" She throws out her hands protestingly.
"Joyce, darling, if you would only listen."
"Listen! I am always listening, it seems to me. To him, to you, to every one. I am tired of being silent; I must speak now. I trusted you, Barbara, and you have been bad to me. Do you want to force him to make love to me, that you tell him on the very first opportunity where to find me, and in a place where I am without you, or any one to——"
"Will you try to understand?" says Mrs. Monkton, with a light stamp of her foot, her patience going as her grief increases. "He cross-examined me as to where you were, and would be, and I—I told him. I wasn't going to make a mystery of it, or you, was I? I told him that you were going to the Doré Gallery to-day with Tommy. How could I know he would go there to meet you? He never said he was going. You are unjust, Joyce, both to him and to me."
"Do you mean to tell me that for all that you didn't know he would be at that place to-day?" turning flashing eyes upon her sister.
"How could I know? Unless a person says a thing right out, how is one to be sure what he is going to do?"
"Oh! that is unlike you. It is unworthy of you," says Joyce, turning from her scornfully. "You did know. And it is not," turning back again and confronting the now thoroughly frightened Barbara with a glance full of pathos, "it is not that—your insincerity that hurt me so much, it is——"
"I didn't mean to be insincere; you are very cruel—you do not measure your words."
"You will tell me next that you meant it all for the best," with a bitter smile. "That is the usual formula, isn't it? Well, never mind; perhaps you did. What I object to is you didn't tell me. That I was kept designedly in the dark both by him and you. Am I," with sudden fire, "a child or a fool, that you should seek to guide me so blindly? Well," drawing a long breath, "I won't keep you in the dark. When I left the gallery, and your protégé, I met—Mr. Beauclerk!"
Mrs. Monkton, stunned by this intelligence, remains silent for a full minute. It is death to her hopes. If she has met that man again, it is impossible to know how things have gone. His fatal influence—her unfortunate infatuation for him—all will be ruinous to poor Felix's hopes.
"You spoke to him?" asks she at last, in an emotionless tone.
"Yes."
"Was Felix with you?"
"When?"
"When you met that odious man?"
"Mr. Beauclerk? No; I dismissed Mr. Dysart as soon as ever I could."
"No doubt. And Mr. Beauclerk, did you dismiss him as promptly."
"Certainly not. There was no occasion."
"No inclination, either. You were kind to him at all events. It is only to the man who is honest and sincere that you are deliberately uncivil."
"I hope I was uncivil to neither of them."
"There is no use giving yourself that air with me, Joyce. You are angry with me; but why? Only because I am anxious for your happiness. Oh! that hateful man, how I detest him! He has made you unhappy once—he will certainly make you unhappy again."
"I don't think so," says Joyce, taking up her hat and furs with the evident intention of leaving the room, and thus putting an end to the discussion.
"You will never think so until it is too late. You haven't the strength of mind to throw him over, once and for all, and give your thoughts to one who is really worthy of you. On the contrary, you spend your time comparing him favorably with the good and faithful Felix."
"You should put that down. It will do for his tombstone," says Miss Kavanagh, with a rather uncertain little laugh.
"At all events, it would not do for Mr. Beauclerk's tombstone—though I wish it would—and that I could put it there at once."
"I shall tell Freddy to read the commandments to you," says Joyce, with a dreary attempt at mirth—"you have forgotten your duty to your neighbor."
"It is all true, however. You can't deny it, Joyce. You are deliberately—willfully—throwing away the good for the bad. I can't bear to see it. I can't look on in silence and see you thus miserably destroying your life. How can you be so blind, darling?" appealing to her with hands, and voice, and eyes. "Such determined folly would be strange in any one; stranger far in a girl like you, whose sense has always been above suspicion."
"Did it ever occur to you," asks Joyce, in a slightly bantering tone, that but ill conceals the nervousness that is consuming her, "that you might be taking a wrong view of the situation? That I was not so blind after all. That I—What was it you said? that I spent my nights and days comparing the merits of Mr. Beauclerk with those of your friend, Felix Dysart—to your friend's discomfiture? Now, suppose that I did thus waste my time, and gave my veto in favor of Mr. Dysart? How would it be then? It might be so, you know, for all that he, or you, or any one could say."
"It is not so light a matter that you should trifle with it," says Mrs. Monkton, with a faint suspicion of severity in her soft voice.
"No, of course not. You are right." Miss Kavanagh moves towards the door. "After all, Barbara," looking back at her, "that applies to most things in this sad old world. What matter under heaven can we poor mortals dare to trifle with? Not one, I think. All bear within them the seeds of grief or joy. Sacred seeds, both carrying in their bosoms the germs of eternity. Even when this life is gone from us we still face weal or woe."
"Still—we need not make our own woe," says Barbara, who is a sturdy enemy to all pessimistic thoughts. "Wait a moment, Joyce." She hurries after her and lays her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Will you come with me next Wednesday to see Lady Monkton?"
"Lady Monkton! Why I thought——"
"Yes, I know. I would not take you there before, because she had not expressly asked to see you. But to-day she made a—she sent you a formal message—at all events she said she hoped I would bring you when I came again."
"Is that all of it?" asks Joyce, gazing at her sister with a curious smile, that is troubled, but has still some growing sense of amusement in it. "What an involved statement! Surely you have forgotten something. That Mr. Dysart was standing near you, for example, and will probably find that it is absolutely imperative that he should call on Lady Monkton next Wednesday, too. Don't set your heart on that, Barbara. I think, after my interview with him to-day, he will not want to see Lady Monkton next Wednesday."
"I know nothing about whether he is to be there or not," says Barbara steadily. "But as Sir George likes to see the children very often, I thought of taking them there on that day. It is Lady Monkton's day. And Dicky Browne, at all events, will be there, and I dare say a good many of your old friends. Do say you will come."
"I hate old friends!" says the girl fractiously. "I don't believe I have any. I don't believe anybody has. I——"
She pauses as the door is thrown open, and Tommy comes prancing into the room accompanied by his father.
"Children know very little; but their capacity of comprehension is great."
"Children know very little; but their capacity of comprehension is great."
"I've just been interviewing Tommy on the subject of the pictures," says Mr. Monkton. "So far as I can make out he disapproves of Doré."
"Oh! Tommy! and all such beautiful pictures out of the Bible," says his mother.
"I did like them," says Tommy. "Only some of them were queer. I wanted to know about them, but nobody would tell me—and——"
"Why, Tommy, I explained them all to you," says Joyce, reproachfully.
"You did in the first two little rooms and in the big room afterward, where the velvet seats were. They," looking at his father and raising his voice to an indignant note, "wouldn't let me run round on the top of them!"
"Good heavens!" says Mr. Monkton. "Can that be true? Truly this country is going to the dogs."
"Where do the dogs live?" asks Tommy, "What dogs? Why does the country want to go to them?"
"It doesn't want to go," explains his father. "But it will have to go, and the dogs will punish them for not letting you reduce its velvet seats to powder. Never mind, go on with your story; so that unnatural aunt of yours wouldn't tell you about the pictures, eh?"
"She did in the beginning, and when we got into the big room too, a little while. She told me about the great large one at the end, 'Christ and the Historian,' though I couldn't see the Historian anywhere, and——"
"She herself must be a most successful one," says Mr. Monkton, sotto voce.
"And then we came to the Innocents, and I perfectly hated that," says Tommy. "'Twas frightful! Everybody was as large as that," stretching out his arms and puffing out his cheeks, "and the babies were all so fat and so horrid. And then Felix came, and Joyce had to talk to him, so I didn't know any more."
"I think you forget," says Joyce. "There was that picture with lions in it. Mr. Dysart himself explained that to you."
"Oh, that one!" says Tommy, as if dimly remembering, "the circus one! The one with the round house. I didn't like that either."
"It is rather ghastly for a child," says his mother.
"That's not the one with the gas," puts in Tommy. "The one with the gas is just close to it, and has got Pilate's wife in it. She's very nice."
"But why didn't you like the other?" asks his father. "I think it one of the best there."
"Well, I don't," says Tommy, evidently grieved at having to differ from his father; but filled with a virtuous determination to stick to the truth through thick and thin.
"No?"
"'Tis unfair," says Tommy.
"That has been allowed for centuries," says his father.
"Then why don't they change it?"
"Change what?" asks Mr. Monkton, feeling a little puzzled. "How can one change now the detestable cruelties—or the abominable habits of the dark ages?"
"But why were they dark?" asks Tommy. "Mammy says they had gas then."
"I didn't mean that, I——" his mother is beginning, but Monkton stops her with a despairing gesture.
"Don't," says he. "It would take a good hour by the slowest clock. Let him believe there was electric light then if he chooses."
"Well, but why can't they change it?" persists Tommy, who is evidently full of the picture in question.
"I have told you."
"But the painter man could change it."
"I am afraid not, Tommy. He is dead."
"Why didn't he do it before he died then? Why didn't somebody show him what to do?"
"I don't fancy he wanted any hints. And besides, he had to be true to his ideal. It was a terrible time. They did really throw the Christians to the lions, you know."
"Of course I know that," says Tommy with a superior air. "But why didn't they cast another one?"
"Eh?" says Mr. Monkton.
"That's why it's unfair!" says Tommy. "There is one poor lion there, and he hasn't got any Christian! Why didn't Mr. Dory give him one?"
Tableau!
"Barbara!" says Mr. Monkton faintly, after a long pause. "Is there any brandy in the house?"
But Barbara is looking horrified.
"It is shocking," she says. "Why should he take such a twisted view of it. He has always been a kind-hearted child; and now——"
"Well. He has been kind-hearted to the lions," says Mr. Monkton. "No one can deny that."
"Oh! if you persist in encouraging him. Freddy!" says his wife with tears in her eyes.
"Believe me, Barbara," breaks in Joyce at this moment, "it is a mistake to be soft-hearted in this world." There is something bright but uncomfortable in the steady gaze she directs at her sister. "One should be hard, if one means to live comfortably."
"Will you take me soon again to see pictures?" asks Tommy, running to Joyce and scrambling upon the seat she is occupying. "Do!"
"But if you dislike them so much."
"Only some. And other places may be funnier. What day will you take me?"
"I don't think I shall again make an arrangement beforehand," says Joyce, rising, and placing Tommy on the ground very gently. "Some morning just before we start, you and I, we will make our plans."
She does not look at Barbara this time, but her tone is eloquent.
Barbara looks at her, however, with eyes full of reproach.
"Love is its own great loveliness always,And takes new beauties from the touch of time;Its bough owns no December and no May,But bears its blossoms into winter's clime."
"Love is its own great loveliness always,And takes new beauties from the touch of time;Its bough owns no December and no May,But bears its blossoms into winter's clime."
"I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children."
"I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children."
"Oh, Felix—is it you!" says Mrs. Monkton in a dismayed tone. Her hansom is at the door and, arrayed in her best bib and tucker, she is hurrying through the hall when Dysart, who has just come, presents himself. He was just coming in, in fact, as she was going out.
"Don't mind me," says he; "there is always to-morrow."
"Oh, yes,—but——"
"And Miss Kavanagh?"
"It is to recover her I am going out this afternoon." It is the next day, so soon after her rupture with Joyce, that she is afraid to even hint at further complications. A strong desire to let him know that he might wait and try his fortune once again on her return with Joyce is oppressing her mind, but she puts it firmly behind her, or thinks she does. "She is lunching at the Brabazons'," she says; "old friends of ours. I promised to lunch there, too, so as to be able to bring Joyce home again."
"She will be back, then."
"In an hour and a half at latest," says Mrs. Monkton, who after all is not strong enough to be quite genuine to her better judgments. "But," with a start and a fresh determination to be cruel in the cause of right, "that would be much too long for you to wait for us."
"I shouldn't think it long," says he.
Mrs. Monkton smiles suddenly at him. How charming—how satisfactory he is. Could any lover be more devoted!
"Well, it would be for all that," says she. "But"—hesitating in a last vain effort to dismiss, and then losing herself—, "suppose you do not abandon your visit altogether; that you go away, now, and get your lunch at your club—I feel," contritely, "how inhospitable I am—and then come back again here about four o'clock. She—I—will have returned by that time."
"An excellent plan," says he, his face lighting up. Then it clouds again. "If she knows I am to be here?"
"Ah! that is a difficulty," says Mrs. Monkton, her own pretty face showing signs of distress. "But anyhow, risk it."
"I would rather she knew, however," says he steadily. The idea of entrapping her into a meeting with him is abhorrent to him. He had had enough of that at the Doré Gallery; though he had been innocent of any intentional deception there.
"I will tell her then," says Mrs. Monkton; "and in the meantime go and get your——"
At this moment the door on the right is thrown open, and Tommy, with a warhoop, descends upon them, followed by Mabel.
"Oh! it's Felix!" cries he joyfully. "Will you stay with us, Felix? We've no one to have dinner with us to-day. Because mammy is going away, and Joyce is gone, and pappy is nowhere; and nurse isn't a bit of good—she only says, 'Take care you don't choke yourselves, me dearies!'" He imitates nurse to the life. "And dinner will be here in a minute. Mary says she's just going to bring it upstairs."
"Oh, do—do stay with us," supplements little Mabel, thrusting her small hand imploringly into his. It is plain that he is in high favor with the children, however out of it with a certain other member of the family—and feeling grateful to them, Dysart hesitates to say the "No" that is on his lips. How hard it is to refuse the entreaties of these little clinging fingers—these eager, lovely, upturned faces!
"If I may——?" says he at last, addressing Mrs. Monkton, and thereby giving in.
"Oh! as for that! You know you may," says she. "But you will perfectly hate it. It is too bad to allow you to accept their invitation. You will be bored to death, and you will detest the boiled mutton. There is only that and—rice, I think. I won't even be sure of the rice. It may be tapioca—and that is worse still."
"It's rice," says Tommy, who is great friends with the cook, and knows till her secrets.
"That decides the question," says Felix gravely. "Every one knows that I adore rice. It is my one weakness."
At this, Mrs. Monkton gives way to an irrepressible laugh, and he, catching the meaning of it, laughs, too.
"You are wrong, however," says he; "that other is my one strength. I could not live without it. Well, Tommy, I accept your invitation. I shall stay and lunch—dine with you." In truth, it seems sweet in his eyes to remain in the house that she (Joyce) occupies; it will be easier to wait, to hope for her return there than elsewhere.
"Your blood be on your own head," says Barbara, solemnly. "If, however, it goes too far, I warn you there are remedies. When it occurs to you that life is no longer worth living, go to the library; you will find there a revolver. It is three hundred years old, I'm told, and it is hung very high on the wall to keep it out of Freddy's reach. Blow your brains out with it—if you can."
"You're awfully good, awfully thoughtful," says Mr. Dysart, "but I don't think, when the final catastrophe arrives, it will be suicide. If I must murder somebody, it will certainly not be myself; it will be either the children or the mutton."
Mrs. Monkton laughs, then turns a serious eye on Tommy.
"Now, Tommy," says she, addressing him with a gravity that should have overwhelmed him, "I am going away from you for an hour or so, and Mr. Dysart has kindly accepted your invitation to lunch with him. I do hope," with increasing impressiveness, "you will be good."
"I hope so, too," returns Tommy, genially.
There is an astonished pause, confined to the elders only, and then, Mr. Dysart, unable to restrain himself any longer, bursts but laughing.
"Could anything be more candid?" says he; "more full of trust in himself, and yet with a certain modesty withal! There! you can go, Mrs. Monkton, with a clear conscience. I am not afraid to give myself up to the open-handed dealing of your son." Then his tone changes—he follows her quickly as she turns from him to the children to bid them good-bye.
"Miss Kavanagh," says he, "is she well—happy?"
"She is well," says Barbara, stopping to look back at him with her hand on Mabel's shoulder—there is reservation in her answer.
"Had she any idea that I would call to-day?" This question is absolutely forced from him.
"How should she? Even I—did I know it? Certainly I thought you would come some day, and soon, and she may have thought so, too, but—you should have told me. You called too soon. Impatience is a vice," says Mrs. Monkton, shaking her head in a very kindly fashion, however.
"I suppose when she knows—when," with a rather sad smile, "you tell her—I am to be here on her return this afternoon she will not come with you."
"Oh, yes, she will. I think so—I am sure of it. But you must understand, Felix, that she is very peculiar, difficult is what they call it now-a-days. And," pausing and glancing at him, "she is angry, too, about something that happened before you left last autumn. I hardly know what; I have imagined only, and," rapidly, "don't let us go into it, but you will know that there was something."
"Something, yes," says he.
"Well, a trifle, probably. I have said she is difficult. But you failed somewhere, and she is slow to pardon—where——"
"Where! What does that mean?" demands the young man, a great spring of hope taking life within his eyes.
"Ah, that hardly matters. But she is not forgiving. She is the very dearest girl I know, but that is one of her faults."
"She has no faults," says he, doggedly. And then: "Well, she knows I am to be here this afternoon?"
"Yes. I told her."
"I am glad of that. If she returns with you from the Brabazons," with a quick but heavy sigh, "there will be no hope in that."
"Don't be too hard," says Mrs. Monkton, who in truth is feeling a little frightened. To come back without Joyce, and encounter an irate young man, with Freddy goodness knows where—"She may have other engagements," she says. She waves him an airy adieu as she makes this cruel suggestion, and with a kiss more hurried than usual to the children, and a good deal of nervousness in her whole manner, runs down the steps to her hansom and disappears.
Felix, thus abandoned, yields himself to the enemy. He gives his right hand to Freddy and his left to Mabel, and lets them lead him captive into the dining-room.
"I expect dinner is cold," says Tommy cheerfully, seating himself without more ado, and watching the nurse, who is always in attendance at this meal, as she raises the cover from the boiled leg of mutton.
"Oh! no, not yet," says Mr. Dysart, quite as cheerfully, raising the carving knife and fork.
Something, however, ominous in the silence, that has fallen on both children makes itself felt, and without being able exactly to realize it he suspends operation for a moment to look at them.
He finds four eyes staring in his direction with astonishment, generously mingled with pious horror shining in their clear depths.
"Eh?" says he, involuntarily.
"Aren't you going to say it?" asks Mabel, in a severe tone.
"Say what?" says he.
"Grace," returns Tommy with distinct disapprobation.
"Oh—er—yes, of course. How could I have forgotten it?" says Dysart spasmodically, laying down the carvers at once, and preparing to distinguish himself. He succeeds admirably.
The children are leaning on the table cloth in devout expectation, that has something, however, sinister about it. Nurse is looking on, also expectant. Mr. Dysart makes a wild struggle with his memory, but all to no effect. The beginning of various prayers come with malignant readiness to his mind, the ends of several psalms, the middles of a verse or two, but the graces shamelessly desert him in his hour of need.
Good gracious! What is the usual one, the one they use at home—the—er? He becomes miserably conscious that Tommy's left eye is cocked sideways, and is regarding him with fatal understanding. In a state of desperation he bends forward as low as he well can, wondering vaguely where on earth is his hat, and mumbles something into his plate, that might be a bit of a prayer, but certainly it is not a grace. Perhaps it is a last cry for help.
"What's that?" demands Tommy promptly.
"I didn't hear one word of it," says Mabel with indignation.
Mr. Dysart is too stricken to be able to frame a reply.
"I don't believe you know one," continues Tommy, still fixing him with an uncompromising eye. "I don't believe you were saying anything. Do you, nurse?"
"Oh, fie, now, Master Tommy, and I heard your ma telling you you were to be good."
"Well, so I am good. 'Tis he isn't good. He won't say his prayers. Do you know one?" turning again to Dysart, who is covered with confusion. What the deuce did he stay here for? Why didn't he go to his club? He could have been back in plenty of time. If that confounded grinning woman of a nurse would only go away, it wouldn't be so bad; but——
"Never mind," says Mabel, with calm resignation. "I'll say one for you."
"No, you shan't," cries Tommy; "it's my turn."
"No, it isn't."
"It is, Mabel. You said it yesterday. And you know you said 'relieve' instead of 'received,' and mother laughed, and——"
"I don't care. It is Mr. Dysart's turn to-day, and he'll give his to me; won't you, Mr. Dysart?"
"You're a greedy thing," cries Tommy, wrathfully, "and you shan't say it. I'll tell Mr. Dysart what you did this morning if you do."
"I don't care," with disgraceful callousness. "I will say it."
"Then, I'll say it, too," says Tommy, with sudden inspiration born of a determination to die rather than give in, and instantly four fat hands are joined in pairs, and two seraphic countenances are upraised, and two shrill voices at screaming-pitch are giving thanks for the boiled mutton, at a racing speed, that censorious people might probably connect with a desire on the part of each to be first in at the finish.
Manfully they fight it out to the bitter end, without a break or a comma, and with defiant eyes glaring at each other across the table. There is a good deal of the grace; it is quite a long one when usually said, and yet very little grace in it to-day, when all is told.
"You may go now, nurse," says Mabel, presently, when the mutton had been removed and nurse had placed the rice and jam on the table. "Mr. Dysart will attend to us." It is impossible to describe the grown-up air with which this command is given. It is so like Mrs. Monkton's own voice and manner that Felix, with a start, turns his eyes on the author of it, and nurse, with an ill-suppressed smile, leaves the room.
"That's what mammy always says when-there's only her and me and Tommy," explains Mabel, confidentially. Then. "You," with a doubtful glance, "you will attend to us, won't you?"
"I'll do my best," says Felix, in a depressed tone, whose spirits are growing low. After all, there was safety in nurse!
"I think I'll come up and sit nearer to you," says Tommy, affably.
He gets down from his chair and pushes it, creaking hideously, up to Mr. Dysart's elbow—right under it, in fact.
"So will I," says Mabel, fired with joy at the prospect of getting away from her proper place, and eating her rice in a forbidden spot.
"But," begins Felix, vaguely, "do you think your mother would——"
"We always do it when we are alone with mammy," says Tommy.
"She says it keeps us warm to get under her wing when the weather is cold," says Mabel, lifting a lovely little face to his and bringing her chair down on the top of his toe. "She says it keeps her warm, too. Are you warm now?" anxiously.
"Yes, yes—burning!" says Mr. Dysart, whose toe is not unconscious of a corn.
"Ah! I knew you'd like it," says. Tommy. "Now go on; give us our rice—a little rice and a lot of jam."
"Is that what your mother does, too?" asks Mr. Dysart, meanly it must be confessed, but his toe is very bad still. The silence that follows his question and the look of the two downcast little faces is, however, punishment enough.
"Well, so be it," says he. "But even if we do finish the jam—I'm awfully fond of it myself—we must promise faithfully not to be disagreeable about it; not to be ill, that is——"
"Ill! We're never ill," says Tommy, valiantly, whereupon they make an end of the jam in no time.