IX
A man may build his house on what he wills,A child with sand her painted bucket fills.
A man may build his house on what he wills,A child with sand her painted bucket fills.
A man may build his house on what he wills,A child with sand her painted bucket fills.
A man may build his house on what he wills,
A child with sand her painted bucket fills.
Dianawrote to her uncle and said poor Shan’t wanted to go to the seaside, but Aunt Elsie could not manage to take her there. Poor little Shan’t! She did so love the sea, and her legs were so pale!
“Selfish woman,” said Marcus; “why couldn’t she make an effort?” To some children the seaside was an absolute necessity. If she wouldn’t he would, and he wrote and said so.
From then onwards, until the day came on which he took Shan’t to the seaside, he lay awake at night pondering on many things—buttons and strings—hooks and eyes—strings and buttons—hooks and strings—buttons and eyes—and he wondered if there were any place at which an uncle—anxious to learn—could be instructed in the dressing and undressing of a small niece on the sands—under the shadow of an upturned boat—on the beach of a favourite watering-place? Would it be possible to go to a watering-place that was not a favourite? Then as he fell asleep there rose before his closing eyes the vision of a houseon wheels—cream to palish pink in colour—which boasted of two side windows and dropped steps from its front door. He had seen such buildings years ago—bathing-machines! And in a bathing-machine the uncle found shelter. They are safer, and wiser and better things, than aunts. Where Aunt Elsie might have helped him, the bathing-machine got him out of a difficulty, and protected him.
Marcus Maitland had forgotten what the seaside was like. It compared in no way with the shores of a sea loch in Scotland—where the peace and beauty are indescribable; where he had many a time watched the swift sweep of the gulls on the wing—the diving of terns. He had seen seals swimming about—wise old men of the sea. He had heard, up on the hill, the croak of the raven; had seen the shadow on the hillside of an eagle’s wings: and there were no babies. An uncle could sit at peace: with no violent aunt in the background. But a favourite watering-place! It was hotter than he had remembered it—more glaring: the people on the beach were less attractive: the babies less pink and less plentiful than the advertisements had promised. Not less plentiful in a way, but they did not stretch right across the beach away to the horizon, hand in hand, nor did they smile at him an invitation to arise and bathe.They squatted in groups about the sand, making castle puddings. Nurses knelt beside them. Nannies, with rugs and bags and baskets, and bottles—and mackintoshes even, and umbrellas, on hot days; and large quantities of white needle-work—garments for the children. It distressed Marcus to think that all this time there was nothing being made for Shan’t. All along the beach, so far as he could see, nurses sewed. Her wardrobe would get terribly out of date. But she didn’t seem to mind; she was very happy. The tucking-in of petticoats had been less difficult than Marcus had imagined: in fact he began to wonder if these things came naturally to men, as they were supposed to come to women. Perhaps in all men there lay dormant the paternal instinct. Certainly, whether the instinct were there or not, he took to this sort of thing amazingly naturally. That he looked the part he never thought. He knew himself to be an uncle, so never thought of himself as anything else.
A mother and daughter began to take notice of Shan’t. One morning they smiled at her and Shan’t smiled back, all over her small person. There was no exclusiveness about this, the younger of his nieces. Diana did at times put her small head up in the air and walk as though the whole world belonged to her—but Shan’t—never! She belonged to the whole world—quite another thing. Thenext morning the mother smiled again and the daughter dropped her book. Whereas Shan’t would promptly have buried it in the sand, Marcus felt bound to pick it up and restore it to its glowing owner. He was thanked by the young woman with a warmth that surprised him. Her voice throbbed with thankfulness, so much so that he wished he had looked at the title of the book. Was the tribute to the author?
The following morning Marcus would have chosen another place in the sun, but Shan’t liked her old haunts—there was a darlin’ crab—she had promised it to come back—faithfully. Uncle Marcus sought to assure her that where a crab was one day, it was not bound to be the next. The sea took it out—right out!
“Right out—right out,” said Shan’t, and she looked so like crying over the departure of the crab seawards that he made for the spot where it had been, and, of course (so hard on uncles this sort of thing!) there was a crab, “in the very same place”—so Shan’t said—“and,” she added, “it was a darlin’ and it looked so pleased to see me—it smiled!”
This kind of thing, too, it was that distressed Marcus. Ought he, as uncle, to tell her that crabs did not smile, or should he leave it alone. “It’s a darlin’,” she repeated. She stood looking at himin grave displeasure—looked at him under her eyelashes. He had lied. The sea had not taken her darlin’ crab away. She knew it hadn’t. The sea had been falsely accused. Shan’t was ever on the side of the injured. The mother and daughter came along and found Marcus standing thus being judged of Shan’t, and this time they both smiled.
“What a darling!” said the younger of the two women, and Shan’t turned and frowned at her. “Aren’t you?” asked the girl.
“No,” said Shan’t.
“What’s your name?”
“Shan’t-if-I-don’t-want-to.”
“Oh, don’t, please, if you don’t want to.”
“It’s that,” said Shan’t.
“What?”
“Shan’t-if-I-don’t—want—to.”
“I don’t want you to,” said the girl with infinite patience—maternal patience, if Marcus could but have appreciated it. The mother looked to see if it were lost upon the man—and saw it was lost. Therefore she sat down beside Marcus, and Shan’t and the girl—friends by this time—were told to run and play.
The mother opened her sunshade and turned a deeply sympathetic face towards a very miserable and bewildered Marcus. This wasn’t the kind of woman with whom he was at ease. She made himshy, which was a thing he was not accustomed to be. He made other people shy as a rule.
“She’s a dear little child,” said the unwelcome woman.
“She is,” said Marcus. “Do you mind if I smoke?” He had found smoking as efficacious against some kinds of women as it is said to be against some kinds of insects—what kinds has not as yet been specified.
“I love it—my daughter is so fond of it.” Seeing Marcus’s look of indifference, perhaps of repugnance—she could not tell which—she added for safety, “The smell of it.”
“Umph,” said Marcus.
“How old is she?”
“Your daughter?” asked Marcus.
And the mother laughed. “How amusing you are! And yet you don’t feel it, do you? you don’t look it.”
“Umph!”
“My daughter and I said how sad you looked—your whole life, we could see, is centred in that child.”
“Not entirely,” said Marcus, thinking of his collections.
“No? But still for a man alone it is a great responsibility.”
“I’ve got some one with me, thank you, to help—a housemaid, her father’s a coast-guardsman.”
“Of course, yes.”
“It’s the buttons and things, on the beach.”
“Of course, yes. Is she like her mother?”
“Like her mother? Yes, I suppose she is—wider between the eyes, perhaps—a little.”
“Ah, the tragedies of life!” A pause, then she added: “Was she taken early?”
“Who?”
“Her mother—that sacred name.”
“Her mother is abroad.”
“Oh, really, I see, of course. We never thought of that. A man alone with a child always suggests—”
“What?” He was really interested. How he appeared to others was a subject that always held him.
“A widower—bereavement.”
“Oh, no, I’m not a widower, far from it—”
The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not found a widower, they had found a bachelor, which is in some ways a far better thing—
“Nice lady,” said Shan’t decisively, pouring sand from her spade on to Marcus’s shoes.
“What did she talk about?” he asked.
“Cwabs.”
“What did she say about crabs?”
“She said—there was one called Penepoly—I think it was—and she was very nice indeed—and she’s dead, so we buried her—and we aren’t goin’ to be sad about it because it is happier for her, because her—husband is dead too—and there aren’t any children—at least not many—There was lots more, only I forget—she was very silly, really.”
“Am I silly, Shan’t?”
“Yes,” said Shan’t; then seizing him round the neck she ecstatically hugged him.
After Shan’t’s prayers were said there lay a long evening before Marcus. He made Shan’t’s going to bed as late as he dared with the housemaid on the watch. It could hardly be made to last over seven o’clock—and then it was over-late, so the housemaid said. Shan’t was inclined to lengthen her day by means of inordinate praying. The prayers ran on to an extraordinary length. Uncle Marcus could not know that Aunt Elsie strictly limited the number of people prayed for. When Shan’t got down to postmen what posted letters, and cwabs what went to sea—and old gentlemen who hadn’t got any buns, and old ladies who hadn’t got any cake—and po-or little children who hadn’t got any bull’s-eyes, Uncle Marcus should have brought her up with a round turn; but he let her wander on till she came to her darlin’ AuntElsie, when he said it was time to stop. “One more, please,” said Shan’t; and she shut her eyes tight and prayed: “Please God, give me a nice donkey ride to-morrow morning at ten o’clock sharp.” She waited, then said, “Thank you,” bowed, and turning to Marcus said triumphantly: “God says hewill.”
And Marcus gave her the nice donkey ride the next morning at ten o’clock—sharp.
After Shan’t was in bed and asleep, Marcus took to walking on the sea-front and there he met again the daughter of the mother. She was certainly an attractive girl—and she said she found him sympathetic and understanding. This was gratifying in the extreme to Marcus—few can withstand so subtle a form of appreciation. He had imagined himself unsympathetic outwardly, difficult to know; but at heart capable of intense feeling. He is not the only man who has thus pictured himself.
Then he took to meeting the girl accidentally by day, surprising her reading, or gazing out to sea, with the book on her lap upside down. Her eyes were wonderfully expressive, full of a sadness she did not feel. This she knew. Marcus did not.
In this manner, seeking to comfort where sorrow was not, but only simple femininity, Marcus lost Shan’t. Hurriedly he sought her: up and down thebeach, stooping to inspect closely the faces of bending babies, entirely forgetting, it seemed, the age and size of Shan’t. As he rushed along the sea-front, he chanced upon an upturned perambulator. It was in the charge of a small girl hardly bigger than Shan’t, though possibly much older. She was groping in the gutter, heedless of the baby’s perilous position. “’Ave you seen ’is satisfoyer?” asked the small woman-child of Marcus. Marcus righted the perambulator, rearranged the baby in the righted perambulator, and said he had not seen the “satisfoyer.” But he searched for it, found it: wiped it, and popped it into the baby’s mouth, just as any lamentably ignorant nurse or mother or woman-child might have done. But he knew better: even mere man knows what danger there lies to the future of England in the snare of the “satisfoyer.” But Marcus was too busy to think of the future of England and her citizens; he was frightfully busy. He had just time to find the baby’s “satisfoyer,” and to find the baby the ugliest he had ever seen, and was off on his search for Shan’t. What should he say to Sibyl if he should fail to find her? To that detestable aunt? To Diana?
He found Shan’t in the process of being converted, and she was enjoying it immensely. Her eyes were cast heavenwards in an abandonment of religious ecstasy: her mouth was rounded to itswidest. She was singing a hymn: sharing a hymn-book with a black man—not even a man black in parts, as is commonly to be met at the seaside, but a real black man.
Marcus watched in despair. For his niece he had ceased to exist—only as part of this world had she known him. She was translated to another: a world where the sands were more golden, the sea more glassy than they could ever be here on earth.
Marcus waited. Waited until Shan’t, with a radiant smile, turned to the black man, thanked him, folded her small hands, gloved in white cotton gloves, the fingers of which turned up as only white cotton fingers can, and gave herself up to the sermon.
“Poor devil!” murmured Marcus, perhaps at the thought of Shan’t’s extreme fairness.
In the middle of the sermon the attention of Shan’t slackened: she swallowed: she removed her gaze from the face of the preacher, just to look around, to see, perhaps, if there were any little boys less religious—or as religious—as herself, and her eyes met those of her reproachful uncle. Hers straightway became fixed on that far-away something. Things have—in the history of the world—looked as innocent as she looked: but very few—among them puppies in chicken-yards. She was absorbed in that far-away something—butwhat gave her away was the pink flush which stole over her little face, then flooded it. Tears gathered in her eyes. But she still gazed bravely—intently—absorbedly.
Marcus walked round, behind the crowd, stooped down behind her and whispered. She rose, and putting her hand in his walked away with him.
“Did you like it, Shan’t?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I hadn’t got a hymn-book of my own.”
“So I supposed,” he said stiffly.
“Iturned over.”
“Did you? Did you like the preacher?”
“Yes. He was rather silly, really.” Shan’t’s usual summary, this.
“What did the preacher say?”
Shan’t hesitated—whatdidhe say? “He said I must love God—and not eat any more apples.”
“Oh!” said Marcus, not recognizing in this brief summary the story of the Garden of Eden. He didn’t believe “that aunt” would either.
“D’you think you’ll go to Heaven?” asked Shan’t cheerfully.
Marcus humbly answered that he hoped he might if he were very good.
“What will God call you?”
This Marcus didn’t know; couldn’t say; had never thought.
“‘Mis-ter Maitland’—or ‘Marcus’—which would you like best?”
Marcus thought—his Christian name was nicest—just as Shan’t said it.
“But the butler must say ‘Mister Maitland,’ mustn’t he?”
“What butler?”
“God’s butler,” said Shan’t, solemnly, rather overcome at the thought of a personage so grand—so awe-inspiring.
“I don’t suppose God has a butler, Shan’t.”
“Don’t you? Who are the Pillars of God’s house, then? Nannie reads about them—”
“Oh, I see.”
“There m-ust be, mustn’t there—because of Pillar?”
“Of course there must be.”
“Will you give Pillar up to God for his house—if God wanted him?”
“I suppose I should have to.”
“I expect he would do things for you—all the same, when you go to Heaven, if God goes away for a few days—and other times too?”
“Who, Pillar?”
“Yes.”
“I expect he would.”
“He says you can’t do without him, so he’d have to.”
“Does he say that?” asked Marcus, feeling a glow of absurd thankfulness permeating his being—
Shan’t nodded and said fervently that she liked Pillar. Marcus had to assure her that he did, too, and there the matter ended—so far as Shan’t was concerned; but not for Marcus. He wasn’t superstitious, but he wished Shan’t hadn’t broached the subject of giving Pillar up to any one. Existence without Pillar would be an impossibility. That afternoon by letter Marcus raised the wages of Pillar five pounds a year, and after listening to Shan’t’s prayers asking God to bless Pillar, he wished he had made it ten pounds. It was disturbing. Life generally was disturbing. An elderly woman in a bath-chair saw that it was so, or guessed it rather than saw it. She was an adept at guessing things. She had seen Marcus meet and walk away with the girl with big brown eyes, which held tragedy in their depths. She could see by the cut of Marcus’s clothes, by his shoes, all she wanted to know of his circumstances in life. She guessed him to be a bachelor and defenceless, because bored. This was not entirely astuteness on her part; she had heard Shan’t call him “Uncle,” and it is only a bachelor uncle who would take a small niece away with him, knowing nothing of the dangers of so doing, and the difficulties. No married man would attempt to do what it takes at leasttwo women to do properly—judging by the babies on the shore and their attendants.
So the next time Marcus passed the elderly woman in her bath-chair, she smiled at him. Not as the other woman had smiled, hoping to attract him, but knowing she would. He was attracted. He liked elderly women as many bachelors do. They find in them a safe outlet.
“Come and talk to me,” said this one, and Marcus felt delighted to do so. “What have you done with your little girl?” she asked.
Marcus said he had left her on the sands—with—
“Oh, yes, I know, the nice girl with dark eyes—tragic eyes, tragic eyes set in a calm face. Nature plays curious tricks, doesn’t she?”
“Yes—I suppose she does. She is my niece.”
“The girl with the tragic eyes—that accounts for it, then.”
“No—no—the child.”
“A delightful child.”
That started Marcus—off he went. It was astonishing how much he found to say about Shan’t. From her getting up in the morning to her going to bed at night: he told it all—and the woman in the bath-chair listened with gentle amusement. Here was a father utterly wasted. This man should marry: but not the girl with tragic, happy, bigbrown eyes. She mustn’t marry a man who would criticize her and be ashamed of her connections. This man was not a big enough man to marry her. He must marry one of his set; who knew what to say and when to say it, and how to say it: who would have things social at her finger-tips. The woman in the bath-chair liked the girl with brown eyes, but she saw at a glance what background should be hers. She settled her in her home with a devoted husband. They would furnish in suites. The girl would have her embroidered tea-cosy: that was certain and a table centre of Indian embroidery—it might be worked in gold thread: it might be worked in green beetles. She would wear—? She would dress in the height of the fashion. This was delightful. The elderly woman loved making up stories about people. But it didn’t amuse Marcus; he didn’t know what she was smiling at.
“What amuses you?” he asked.
“So much—nearly everything! In fact everything except the tragedies of life—and those often might have been avoided if some one had laughed at the right moment.”
“The difficulty is to know the right moment,” said Marcus. “What amused you?”
She told him: described the home she had chosen for the girl. Marcus said she was very unkind.Why unkind? she wanted to know. She was praising the girl, if only he could see it. That was why he could never marry a girl like that: he could never see how delightful, how wholesome, how splendid she was.
“If you had a son—would you like him to marry her?”
“No, because my son might, I am afraid, be something like you. Too spoilt to be natural. Both you and he would look for things that are superficial and unnecessary—a certain easy manner—a ready jargon. You are perfectly right to look for it, for you have come to expect it. As I say, you would criticize this girl—and criticism would stunt her growth. She would be unnatural, and in course of time she would be unhappy. But the young man she should marry will admire her: bring out the best in her: encourage her; and in course of time what she must learn will be taught her by her sons and daughters. The daughters will criticize her and the sons will force her to be different. By that time she will be ready to change—and in the background there will always be her husband to tell her, when they find themselves alone, that he liked her best as she was, and things as they used to be. And if she had not been so happy young she would never have such fine boys and girls, and it is her boys and girls—girls particularly—whoare going to make England. Now let us see the little niece—I am rather blind—I cannot see her face at a distance.”
Marcus called “Shan’t” and Mrs. Sloane smiled. This Marcus did not see. He was rearranging the skirts of Shan’t: pulling up her socks; arranging her hair, so that some of it at least showed under her hat; then he patted her generally, as any mother might have done.
“Well?” said the elderly woman.
“Oh!” said Shan’t, beaming.
Marcus was delighted to see how quickly they made friends. Every one took to Shan’t.
He turned and found the dark-eyed girl coming towards him—shyly advancing. She was certainly too self-conscious. “My mother says we should be so pleased if you would come shrimping with us this afternoon and come to supper afterwards.” She had made the great advance; Marcus would have retreated, but he had been caught unprepared; he hesitated, seeking an excuse. The first that presented itself to him was that his legs were too pale, as Shan’t’s had been: the next that he didn’t shrimp.
“But you must have supper somewhere?” she suggested.
Marcus could not say that as a rule he did not have it anywhere, so he said—“Oh, thank you—”
“Then youwill?”
While Marcus was talking to the girl the elderly woman stooped forward—and drew Shan’t towards her. “Shan’t, darling,” she said, “don’t tell Uncle Marcus I know you. For a joke, let’s pretend.”
“Let’s!” said Shan’t, enchanted. She required no more than a hint, and when Marcus came back, deeply engaged to supper, he found the two talking—making conversation.
“Have you many children?” asked Shan’t, sitting down on an inverted tin bucket.
“No—I have no children.”
“That’s—a pity, isn’t it?”
“Yes—it’s a great pity.”
“No boys—not one? Perhaps you’ve forgotten—? You might have one or two—perhaps in the toy cupboard—”
“Not one.”
“Oh, dear—I hope your little dog is quite well?”
“Thank you very much—but my little dog is dead.”
“Oh, dear—Iamsurprised—they don’t generally—but the gooseberries are very good this year, at least I think they are.”
“Excellent,” said the elderly lady; “I have never seen better.”
“And the red-currants are rather good,” said Shan’t.
“Excellent.”
“Do you paddle often?” asked Shan’t.
“No, I have just had influenza.”
“Oh, dear—that’s rather a pity.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Itis—what shall I say next?” she whispered.
“You mustn’t whisper,” said Marcus; “it isn’t polite.”
“I think—I’ll just go—and look for—crabs,” said Shan’t, getting pink.
“Do,” said the elderly woman. “A most intelligent child,” she added, turning to Marcus, “but why does she wear shoes and socks and a hat?”
“Ought she not?” asked Marcus anxiously.
“She would be happier without—but leave her now. Tell me about her.”
“She’s a curious child in some ways—the way she makes friends, surely, is unusual; and her conversation with you—rather advanced for a child of her age, isn’t it?”
“Most unusual.”
“It’s not dangerous, is it?”
“I see no possible danger in her talking to me.”
“No; I mean she isn’t too clever for her age, is she?”
“She is so much with you—isn’t she?”
Marcus smiled—“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”
That evening Mrs. Sloane wrote a letter and it ran as follows:
Dearest Elsie,—I have met the ogre. He’s really rather an ingratiating ogre and the most attentive of uncles. He is delightful with Shan’t. He is taken for a widower with his little girl. One dark-eyed siren has already tried to enchant him. I have interfered. The girl is much too good for him, and in other ways unsuitable. He couldn’t make her happy and she certainly would make him very unhappy. He would be in no danger at all if he were not bored and the mother managing. I don’t see, Elsie, why you should dislike him. He doesn’t know that I know you. Amusing, isn’t it? Shan’t and I are in the secret. She plays up splendidly—makes conversation and asks me how many children I have. She seems very happy and quite at home. She is too heavily hatted and stoutly shod, but I have interfered there, too. To me the uncle seems wasted. He should marry. I should make friends, if I were you.
Dearest Elsie,—I have met the ogre. He’s really rather an ingratiating ogre and the most attentive of uncles. He is delightful with Shan’t. He is taken for a widower with his little girl. One dark-eyed siren has already tried to enchant him. I have interfered. The girl is much too good for him, and in other ways unsuitable. He couldn’t make her happy and she certainly would make him very unhappy. He would be in no danger at all if he were not bored and the mother managing. I don’t see, Elsie, why you should dislike him. He doesn’t know that I know you. Amusing, isn’t it? Shan’t and I are in the secret. She plays up splendidly—makes conversation and asks me how many children I have. She seems very happy and quite at home. She is too heavily hatted and stoutly shod, but I have interfered there, too. To me the uncle seems wasted. He should marry. I should make friends, if I were you.
To which Elsie wrote back that she was perfectly friendly towards Mr. Maitland. It was he who was impossible. She certainly couldn’t make advances. He had been very rude and very selfish aboutDiana. Diana, dear child, was very loyal to him and never said anything against him. Shan’t, of course, childlike, would be fond of any one who indulged her.
The elderly woman lay back in her chair and laughed when she read Elsie’s letter. Elsie was perfectly friendly towards the poor uncle. What would she be if she were unfriendly?